Two Worlds Clashed
by Lyr942
Summary: COMPLETE! SEQUEL UP! Harry's world is falling apart. Voldemort's alive and Ron's dead. So when Hermione offers a way to get their best friend back Harry jumps at the chance...with disasterous results. They are stuck in the past with no way of getting home
1. Just When You Think Things Cant Worse

**A/N Hi guys, this is my 2nd FF on this site though it's quite different from my other one (Who Are You? btw if you want to read) I have finished writing this fic so I can promise u here and now that i wont jus stop writing it and abandon it.**

**Anyway, at time this story can be quite sad, especially the beginning but ive tried to put in some jokes to lighten it up a bit, anyway i hope u enjoy it and plz dnt 4get to review cos I really want to hear wot u hav 2 say even if its jus a 'gd post' or a 'thats shit, dnt write agen' (tho i really hope its nt the 2nd 1)**

**anyway enjoy**

When You Think Things Can't Get Any Worse

'Oh Harry you're finally here!' shrieked Hermione, jumping up from her seat knocking both Ron and his cake to the ground in the process. 'What took you so long? You were meant to be back hours ago.' Ron shot a black look at the bouncing girl as he climbed to his feet, staring longingly at the pile of chocolate cake currently on the carpet.  
'Death-eaters,' said Tonks walking into the room, as she spoke she squinted her eyes and the large gash on her cheek disappeared. Harry nodded.  
'Are you ok?'asked Hermione anxiously.  
'Yeah, between me, Tonks and Mad-Eye we managed to stun them all long enough to tie them up and get out the house, my aunt and uncle were pretty freaked though.'

Over the last year Harry had barely had a week where he hadn't been attacked by death eaters or dementors, coming off the victor on each occasion. However, surviving had it's downsides. Because everytime he had managed to get away, Voldemort was getting increasingly angry and often after one of these failed attacks Harry would feel his anger.  
Dumbledore was now teaching Harry occlumency and he was doing alot better but there was still the odd occasion when, Voldemort was feeling really angry when Harry would sense it and when this happened he always felt a sick sense of failure. Dumbledore had been trying very hard to help him and when it wasn't working Harry felt he was letting him down.

It was then that Ron decided to stop grieving over his lost cake and joined the conversation. 'Hiya mate,' he said, 'glad to see your still alive.'  
He said this as though it was the most natural greeting in the world and Harry couldnt help but laugh. Little did he know that in a weeks time he would never feel less like laughing than he had in his whole life because in a day, Harry's world would come crashing down.

Since he had finished his sixth year at Hogwarts, Harry had been spending most of his time at Grimmauld Place which they were still using as the Order of the Phoenix headquaters. After Sirius had died they thought that they were going to loose it but it turned out that he had left everything he owned to Harry, including the house and, of course, he immediately volunteered it for the Order. And despite the daily attacks and all the work that he was having to do to keep the building in working order, Harry was having the best time of his life. He was finally away from the Dursleys and with his friends. The situation, however, wasn't perfect because of the fact that the person that Harry had really wanted to be living with was now dead. He still thought about Sirius constantly and when he did he felt a horrible pain in his heart. He missed him so much and there wasn't a week that went by where he didn't cry himself to sleep at least once, though as quietly as possible so that Ron wouldn't here. However, through the day he didn't let this show, he put on a strong face and threw his mind into tasks to be dealt with, such as cleaning, cooking or hiding from the Twins who had taken to testing their new products on their unsuspecting housemates.

That night the whole order seemed to be at number 12 Grimmauld Place for dinner and Mrs. Weasley had every available wand helping out with dinner which fortunately excluded all those still in school and Fred and George and been causing more trouble than they were helping so they were quickly ordered out of the kitchen. They all sat around in the boys bedroom and they were filling Harry in on what had been happening in the headquarters of the Order since he had left to go visit the Dursleys a week ago to check they were still alive. (They had been though not too happy to see Harry again).  
'Well, Moody managed to get the entire auror division to join,' said Ginny, happily.  
'And Fred and George have managed to get the extending ears to penetrate the charm mum put on the door in the meeting room,' Ron added. The twins looked hugely pleased with themselves.  
'You heard anything interesting, then,' asked Harry.  
'Not really, everything there is to know about you-know-who is in the Daily Prophet now, anyway. He's not exactly being discrete anymore.'  
Harry hung his head. Now everyone knew He was back it had been like a total masacre.  
He had read that Seamus Finnigan's father had been killed only a week ago because he tried to stand up to Voldemort during an attack on his house. Seamus and his mother had both gotton away, though Harry doubted either of them would ever be the same again. During the last year at school several students had broken down in the Great Hall after recieving a letter, it had become an almost daily occurance.  
Harry felt a huge surge of guilt everytime he heard some of this news because he couldn't help thinking that somehow it was his fault, though Hermione and Ron constantly assured him it wasn't. They just didn't understand.

Dinner that night was a happy affair though everyone seemed slightly tense, there was no discussion of the recent events and everytime someone did mention them Mrs.Weasley would hush them saying it wasn't talk for the dinner table.  
Harry was watching Bill and Charlie who were in deep argument over some quidditch match they'd made a bet on and Charlie had refused to pay up.  
Harry turned and watched Ron who was absent-mindedly twirling a fork around his finger. Harry noticed the scar across Ron's jaw-bone from when they were battling the death-eaters in the department of mysteries over a year ago and couldn't help resenting the fact that Ron never got half the attention for his scar that Harry did.

Hermione was in a deep, hushed discussion with Lupin, but no matter how much he tried Harry couldn't work out what was being said. He eventually gave up and focused on some of the rest of the people eating instead.

Glancing around the room, he realised that the vast majority of people there he didn't even know. They were all new members and though he knew that the fact there was no much mew blood was a good thing, he couldn't help but feel slightly resentful that he had never been introduced to any of them, despite the fact they were in his house.  
After dinner they all went straight to bed and fell pretty much straight to sleep knowing they were to go to Diagon Alley the following day to do their school shopping.

The next morning Mrs. Weasley had everyone up bright and early. The plan was that they would go into work with Fred and George using floo powder because Harry wanted to see the shop and then they were all going to go shopping.  
By 9am when everyone was up, dressed, fed and ready and they stepped one by one into the fireplace in number 12 Grimmauld Place.  
Harry landed with a gentle thud and stepped forward, wiping his glasses and glancing around the shop, his mouth hanging open.  
'Wow,' he gasped,'this place is amazing.'  
Every inch of the walls were covered in different tricks and pranks, enough to even satisfy the biggest pranksters needs. The twins grinned widely.

Their shop was a huge success, and already they were almost as popular as Zonkos.  
After admiring the store the group left Fred and George selling some of their Weasleys' Wildfire Whizzbangs to and eagar looking 3rd year and pulled out their supplies lists.  
Once outside Harry, Ron and Hermione went off to get their school supplies and Ginny went with her mother promising to meet back there in 3 hours.

Within about 2 hours they had done most of their shopping apart from Harry who said that he needed some new robes as his were getting a bit short and that the others should go and get some ice-cream, promising them to meet them back at the ice-cream shop.  
They agreed and Harry walked down to Madame Malkims Robes for All Occasions, he explained what he wanted and she began fitting his robes, talking to him about something he wasn't really listening to.  
About 20 minutes, as Harry was paying for them he heard a loud bang and the ground shook slightly. Horrified Harry looked up and saw the glow of a bright green light.

NO!

Harry ran from the shop as fast as he could towards where a large crowd had gathered.  
No, Voldemort wouldnt just turn up in Diagon Alley...  
But he was sure that he had felt His joy seconds after the explosion.  
Please let them be ok.  
Please let them be ok.  
He pushed his way through the crowd and the sight that his eyes met filled him with pure horror.  
No not again.

**Review for the nxt chapter**


	2. It went from Bad, to Worse, to Please Le...

**A/N Hey guys, I have to warn you that this is possibly the most depressing chapter, I just hope you dnt h8 me for it, just remember it HAD to happen.**

**_Last Time_**

NO!

Harry ran from the shop as fast as he could towards where a large crowd had gathered.  
No, Voldemort wouldnt just turn up in Diagon Alley...  
But he was sure that he had felt His joy seconds after the explosion.  
Please let them be ok.  
Please let them be ok.  
He pushed his way through the crowd and the sight that his eyes met filled him with pure horror.  
No not again.

Things went from Bad, to Worse, to Please Let the Ground Swallow Me!

There was Ron lay flat on his back on the ground and Hermione was leaning over him, her head lay on his chest, sobbing.  
'NO!' This time he said it out aloud and Hermione looked up. One look at her tear-streaked face confirmed his worst fear.  
He fell to his knees beside his fallen best friend and, not caring about all the people who where stood looking, broke into tears.  
'Ron, no Ron you have to wake up...I can't lose you too.' He said this last part in whisper as though his voice wouldn't make a noise any louder.  
He turned and pulled Hermione into a hug, the pair sobbed uncontrollably into each other's shoulders..

He had no idea how long they sat there but they were pulled out of this strange trance but the sound of a womans shriek.  
Mrs. Weasley was stood with her hand clapped over her mouth and her eyes wide. She fell forwards onto her knees and crawled over to Ron, pulling his lifeless body into a tight embrace hoping it would wake him up, rocking backwards and forwards as if in some sort of strange trance, not believing what was happening.  
She turned and hugged both Harry, Hermione and Ginny who had come with her. The Ministry of Magic showed up minutes later including Mad-Eye Moody, who took one look at the body and a single tear fell from his good eye.

'Hermione?' said Fudge timidly, 'I know this is a really bad time but we need to know exactly what happened.'  
Hermione nodded, stood up and walked over to the now empty table outside the ice-cream parlour where her and Ron had been sat talking happily only minutes before. She looked at the table for a second with it's uneaten ice-cream and realised she couldn't sit there so she moved on to another one, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand, not caring about the mascara that was now streaked down her cheeks.  
'Well...,' she took a deep, shakey breath, 'this is what happened....'

Flashback  
Ron and Hermione were sat discussing who they thought was going to be their DADA teacher this year, it had started as a fairly sensible conversation but had soon become far from that with Ron's outrageous suggestions of a vampire, a cyclops and Lord Voldemort himself.

They heard a loud crack like somebody apparating but as this was Diagon Alley they thought nothing of it until a hand grabbed hold of the back of Hermione's collar and pulled her to her feet.  
They both spun around..  
'Voldemort!' Screams erupted from all around them, and people began running madly in all directions. Hermione thought with disgust that no-one had tried to help them but the thought was quickly pushed from her mind.  
'Where is Harry Potter?' he said angrily at Ron.  
'I..I..I don't know,' though is voice was stuttery, Ron's face was filled with determination and an expression that said nothing would make him tell.  
At this reply Voldemort tightened his hold of Hermione who screamed and pointed his wand at her face.  
'TELL ME!!!'  
'I'm not gonna sacrifice one friend to save another,' said Ron and pulled out his wand behind his back, hiding it from view.  
'STUPEFY!' he shouted and Voldemort flew backwards, releasing Hermione momentarily. Unluckily he recovered quicker than anybody imagined and before anyone could react he had pointed his wand at Ron and shouted those deadly words that would end his life.  
Hermione shrieked and ran to Ron in horror, crying.

End Flashback

'And by the time I looked around again he was gone, then Harry appeared,' finished Hermione, tears streaming down her cheeks. She hadn't even realised that Harry, who was sat beside her, had hold of her hand until he pulled her into a tight hug.  
'Ok, then thank you Miss Granger, I am deeply sorry,' said Fudge as he got up from his seat and moved away to tell one of his companions to go and consult Mr. Weasley.  
Mrs. Weasley was sat in a deep trance staring into space. Everywhere around them was in complete silence, nobody even dared say a word.  
It was then that Percy arrived. When he walked up to her his mother looked up.  
He stared at her momentarily before he flung himself to Molly's neck.  
'I'm so sorry Mum, I'm just so sorry.'

Four days later everyone filed into a number of cars to go to the cemetary for Ron's funeral.  
When Harry and Hermione arrived with the rest of the Weasley family they were amazed at the number of people that were there. It seemed that the whole of Gryffindor was there as well as some other students along with all of their teachers.  
The Weasleys also had a huge family and they were all present.  
Mrs. Weasley hadn't stopped crying since it had happened but Mr. Weasley seemed to have cried all he had left and was now just walking around in a strange daze.  
They all took their seats as the minister stood up to speak. Harry didn't hear a single word that he said, all he could do was stare at the coffin in front of him that held the body of his best friend. He glanced sidewards at Hermione who had her face buried in her hands, sobbing and he put his arm around her pulling her close.  
He was losing everyone he loved one-by-one. He had just been starting to accept the fact that Sirius was gone and he wasn't coming back when this happened. The ceremony didnt seem to last very long and as he and Hermione rose from their seats (his arm still tightly around her like he wasn't gonna lose her as well) they turned to meet Neville, Seamus and Dean. They all hugged Hermione and Neville pulled Harry into a hug also. He looked as though he had been crying as much a Hermione was. Harry threw one last glance over his shoulder to see the coffin being lowered into the ground before they followed the rest of the people in silence.

That night when they got back to the Order Headquarters Harry and Hermione didnt really feel very much like talking to people so they went up to Hermione's bedroom. Neither of them said much for a long time, but then the silence was broken.  
'We've got to bring him back,' Hermione said suddenly, a look of remembrance and realisation on her face.  
'Herm, thats not possible.'  
'But it is Harry, it is,' she exclaimed before jumping off her bed and crawling to her trunk. She flung it open and started rumaging around.  
Curious, Harry sat up to see what she was doing.  
'Aha,' said Hermione. She'd found what she was looking for..  
She lifted up....the timeturner. At the sight of this Harry smiled. This could work.  
'Dumbledore thought that I should keep it in case of an emergency and I think this is an emergency.'  
She climbed onto the bed next to Harry and showed him the bottom of the tiny hourglass, there was a small switch with 3 things that it could point to. Hours, days and years.  
'All we have to do is turn it back five days and then stop Ron from going to Diagon Alley. But Harry, I don't think that we should tell anyone about this and I mean ANYONE because this can't be exactly allowed,' said Hermione excitedly. She was talking very fast though Harry hardly noticed. His mind was racing.  
'Ok lets do it now.'  
Just then Mrs. Weasley walked in to tell them that dinner was ready and Hermione tucked the necklace under her pillow out of view. They both stood up and left.  
'Next time we're alone,' whispered Harry.

However the weeks past and Harry and Hermione couldn't get a minute alone. Mrs. Weasley seemed to want to have everyone all together in the same place all the time as though she didn't want to risk losing anyone else and no-one had the heart to argue with her.  
It wasn't until three weeks later when they were all climbing on the Hogwarts Express to go back to school that the opportunity arose. Harry and Hermione purposely found a compartment by themselves and locked the door.  
Hermione then pulled the time-turner out of her shirt and put it around Harry's neck.  
'21 days,' she muttered and slid the switch to 'days'. She took a deep breath and began to turn the hourglass.

1...2...3

Harry's breath started to get a little faster. He was gonna get his best friend back.

13...14...15.

He could feel his palms getting sweaty.

18...19...20 the train gave a sudden jolt just as Hermione turned it one last time.

21.

Harry suddenly felt dizzy then felt like he had landed. He opened his eyes.

The train...why were they on the train?

'I don't get it,' said Hermione looking confused, 'if this is 21 days ago we shouldn't be on the train and there shouldn't be other people here.' Voices could be heard walking up the passage outside their compartment. 'I don't get it.'  
Harry stood up and looked outside the window. They were on their way to Hogwarts there was no doubt about it.  
'Maybe it didn't work,' he suggested, shrugging.  
'NO! said Hermione but when Harry looked at her she wasn't paying any attention to what he had just said, she was staring with wide eyes at the bottom of the time-turner.  
'Sw...sw...switch,' she stuttered and Harry took the necklace from her. Immediately the look on his face changed to match hers.  
The small switch on the bottom of the hourglass wasn't pointing at 'days'. It was pointing at 'years'.  
'NO!' he said,'we've...we've gone back 21 YEARS.'  
He fell backwards onto the seat.  
'Hermione, you can send us back to where we should be, right?'  
Her eyes were still as wide as plates. 'No,' she said, a tear running down her cheek, 'the time-turner only sends you back in time. We're suck!

They both fell into a dead silence then and neither of them spoke for a while.  
Hermione was thinking of every possible way that she could fix this but as far as she knew there was no magic to send you forward in time. There were laws against it because it was felt that no-one should be able to know that much information.  
Harry's mind wasn't trying to think up ways home it was simply repeating the words  
_21 years  
21 years_  
over and over again.  
_I haven't even been born yet.  
Hermione hasn't been born yet.  
Voldemort is still in power.  
My parents..._  
He froze!  
'My parents!' he said out loud.  
Hermione looked up, not having really heard what he'd said and after he repeated himself it took her a few seconds to work out what he meant. When she did her eyes widened.  
'21 years ago my parents were still at Hogwarts. I'm going to school with my parents!!'

* * *

**A/N Review Responses**

**Queen of Harry Potter - _u were my very 1st reviewer, I hope ur very proud_**

**Kota-77 - _I'm really sorry u dnt like cliffys, I know I hate it when other ppl do it wen im reading theirs but I'm gona take my revengen do it weneva I feel evil :) lol,its jus 2 keep u reading, anywayI'm really plzd u think its gd, plz keep reviewing_**

**SpicySugar_- glad u liked the start, n i promise as long as u keep reviewing I will keep posting and I mean u personally :-) I fYOU stop reviewing il stop posting even if loadsa other ppl do, lol no pressure ;)_**

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**Plz dnt 4get to review guys, I really wana kno wot u think, even if its bad**


	3. Seeing the Bright Side

** A/N hi ppl, sorry about the long wait, I've been away on holiday, for some reason I thought I told you this in my last post but apparently I didnt, must be going mad.**

**Anyway, I hope you like my next chapter**

Seeing the Bright Side

This revelation seemed to bring Hermione back to her senses and she managed to calm down the now frantic Harry.  
'We need to think of a plan.'  
So between them they spent the next few hours deciding what they were going to do, though using the phrase 'between them' as lightly as possible as Harry struggled to concentrate on anything. Eventually they decided that they were going to have to find a way to become Hogwarts students so that they could then search the library and use every magical resourse possible to find a way home because they figured what better place was there for finding information than at Hogwarts?. The question was how were they just going to go to school.  
This was solved by a simple letter forged (magically of course to make it look real) by Hermione.  
It read..  
_Dear Professer Dumbledore,  
I am hugely sorry for this but I need to ask of you a favour. Two of my students, Hermione Granger and Harry Parker, who are currently supposed to be attending my own school, The American Institute for Wizardry and Witchcraft are in need of some help. Due to sad circumtances and for their own personal safety I feel it is necessary for them to be transferred to Hogwarts. I am terribly sorry for the inconvenience and for the lack of further information but I do not feel it safe to write any further details in a letter.  
I apologise for the short notice but as I am sure you are aware these are dangerous times and I feel that they will be safest in your care.  
Also it would be greatly appreciated to keep the reasons for their transfer a secret.  
Yours sincerley  
Deleria Fishwrath  
Headmistress_

Hermione handed the letter to Harry who read it and smiled.  
'This should work, he said, 'only, why am I Parker?'  
'Well, it's ok for me to keep my last name because my parents are muggles and there is no-one in my family who were at Hogwarts before me but if your Dad is here then it might look a little wierd to have two Potters,' she explained rationally. Her initail panic seemed to have disappeared now that they had a plan and, although it might be impossible, she was confident that they would discover a way home soon and if worst came to worst they always had Dumbledore.

They spent the rest of their trip as they usually would and it wasn't until he felt that they were getting close to Hogwarts that Harry started to feel nervous.  
He was going to meet his parents.

When the train stopped Harry and Hermione found a carriage that only had one girl in who looked in their year.  
'Hi, I'm Em Hawkins,' she said brightly, 'who are you? How come I haven't seen you here before? I'm sure I would have recognised you.'  
Em was a pretty girl whose hair fell just past her shoulders in loose natural curls at the ends and dark brown eyes.  
Hermione smiled innocently, 'Hi, I'm Hermione Granger and this is Harry Po...Parker. We've just transferred from America, that's why we've never met.' Hermione smiled what she hoped was naturally and hoped the girl wouldn't ask any more questions.  
'Oh right, that explains it, well I suppose you'll have to be sorted.' Em said this in a natural tone but Hermione glanced sideways at Harry, they hadn't thought of this.  
'What house are you in,'asked Harry, suddenly curious about this girl.  
'Gryfindor. Hope you to are too.'  
Hermione laughed a little,'Me too.'  
Just then the carriage door flung open and in stepped a gorgeous red-headed girl who looked a bit out of breath.

Harry stiffened in his seat.  
'Phew, just made it,' she gasped,' had to sort out some lost 1st years, being Head-Girl is tiring me out already.'  
'Don't mess, Lily, you know you love it really.'  
Lily grinned widely, 'So who is this?'

Em introduced Harry and Hermione and Lily shook both of their hands.  
Harry smiled widely at his mother as she took his hand and she then tilted her head to the side and lowered her eyes..  
'You know you look just like James,' she said simply.  
Hermione, realising that if they actually were who they were pretending to be would have no idea who 'James' was so she asked, as naturally as she could who he was.  
'The boy who's in love with Lily,' said Em laughing, and nudging her friend.  
'He's not in love with me,' Lily said trying to sound stern but a large grin had appeared on her face, 'Ok, maybe he is.' They all started laughing.

'Hey Harry, what's with the scar?' asked Em, 'Never seen one like it.'

_Thats because no-one has ever had one before, _thought Harry.

'Car accident,' he replied simply and the topic was dropped. It was then that they arrived at Hogwarts.

Harry and Hermione climbed out of the carriages and spotted Professer McGonagal stood in a crowd of first years.  
Hermione took Harry's hand and they pushed their way through the other students.  
'Professer,' Hermione said when they made it to her, 'I'm Hermione Granger and this is Harry Parker,'  
_It feels strange introducing myself to someone who has been teaching me for 6 years _she thought.  
She then handed McGonagal the letter and they held their breaths hoping that she would believe it.

'Ok, you two will need to be sorted, go inside with these first years and wait.'  
Harry and Hermione followed her instuctions and a few minutes later they were stood outside the Great Hall waiting to be sorted again both of them appreciating fully exactly how strange this situation was.

They walked into the hall and as they did Harry skimmed the Gryfindor table for any signs of his father but he couldn't see him.  
'Harry Parker,' McGonagal called and Harry stepped forward and put the hat on.  
'Gryfindor!' It shouted immediately and Harry proceeded to the table and sat next to a boy with curly blonde hair who gave Harry an enormous smile when he sat down.  
'Hermione Granger,' called McGonagal and Hermione stepped forward.  
She put then hat on her head and it called Gryfindor loudly.  
She grinned and took her seat next to Harry, 'That was a surprise,' she muttered sarcastically, still smiling.

The rest of the sorting went as usual and Dumbledore made his speech before they all started eating, as he sat down he caught eyes with Harry and nodded, letting him know that Mc Gonagal had informed him of the situation.  
Harry looked up and down the Gryfindor table but he could see no sign of James or any of the other marauders.  
He mentioned this to Hermione but she just shrugged her shoulders. She seemed in deep conversation with Em, the girl from the carriage.

When the feast was over Harry and Hermione stood up with the rest of the students and were pushed along with the crowd towards the doorway.

They left the Great Hall and made their way to the Gryfindor common room. Harry and Hermione lagged behind everyone else as Hermione was telling him that she would get up tomorrow morning and go to the library.  
When they arrived at the common room there seemed to be a party going on and there was a huge banner with the words  
_Marauders last year - we know you're all gonna miss us_!

People were dancing all around and on the table stood...James Potter.  
He seemed to be grinning at someone who was stood on the floor in front of the table but there were too many people around for Harry to see who. Then he watched as his father leaned forward and lifted Lily up onto the table and toward him, her attempts to resist were failing but she didn't look like she was too bothered.  
He was trying to get her to dance and she struggled for and moment before she then gave up and took his hand.

Glancing around the room Harry saw Sirius Black sat on the sofa making out with a girl he recognised as Em. He had heard that his godfather was a womaniser at Hogwarts but seeing him in action brought a smile to Harry's face.

Remus was moving between the crowds laughing and joking. Harry couldn't remember seeing him so happy, he looked alot younger and it made him feel sad to know that this handsome, young man would soon be so worn and tired. To Harry's disgust, Peter Pettigrew was stood by the food table looking on at everyone else.

Lily, then glanced over to Harry and Hermione, whispered something to James and they jumped off the table and walked over.  
Lily introduced them and James immediately started asking questions.  
'So...Harry, you play Quidditch?'  
Harry was immediately enthusiastic, 'Yeah, I was seeker before I came here, I started at the youngest age my school had had in a century.'  
James was amazed and the were soon in a deep conversation.

Lily turned to Hermione, 'So is he your boyfriend?' she asked in a low tone.  
Hermione giggled and said that they were just friends. At this Lily raised her eyebrows and grinned, giving Hermione a 'yeah right' look.  
'Really!' Hermione said in reply to the look and Lily just smiled.

'Come on,' Lily said after they'd been talking for a while, 'I'll introduce you to a few people.'  
She took Hermione's hand and lead her up to where Sirius and Em were still making out on the couch.  
'You know Em right? And this is her highly irratating boyfriend, Sirius Black.'  
Sirius and Em broke apart and a very young looking Sirius Black stood up and put his arm around Lily, 'You don't have to introduce me so nicely Lil,' he said grinning. 'Hi,' He said to Hermione,'What's up?'

Harry looked over to where his mum and Hermione were now talking to Sirius, he smiled to himself thinking how sereal this whole situation was.  
It then got even more strange as Remus Lupin walked over and swung his arm loosely over James' shoulder.  
'So Jamie-boy, you made a new friend?'  
James smiled and introduced Harry. 'Nice to meet ya Harry, you know you to could be brothers. Apart from the eyes. Wierd huh!'  
Harry smiled and nodded hoping that none of them would suspect something but hey, what are they gonna guess. That he is really James' son from the future who has accidently travelled back in time to have to come to school with is parents.  
Harry felt a pang in his stomach. He wished Ron was here. He suddenly felt really tired.  
'I think I'm gonna go to bed guys,' he said and with that he headed towards the dormitory stairs. As he did he caught Hermione's eye and she also excused herself from her new friends and followed him.

Once they were upstairs and alone they sat down on the bed that was now to be Harry's.  
'So...hows my mum?' Harry asked smiling slightly.  
'She's great, she's such a nice person though Sirius hasn't changed much except that it's noticable now the difference Azkaban made on him.'  
Harry let out an involuntary sigh and felt tears welling up inhis eyes. As he did Hermione pulled him into a hug. 'It's gonna be ok, you know,' she said not letting go of him, 'We will find a way home but while we're here you should take advantage of the fact that you're parents are still alive.'

'I know, it's just gonna be so hard knowing how awful everything is going to turn out and not being able to do a damn thing about it.'

'I know, but by altering time we have no idea what the reprocussions could be, I know it's difficult but fate has thrown us into this situation for a reason and I think you should take advantage of that while you can, we have no idea how long we're gonna be here.'  
They pulled apart and he looked at her, 'When did you become the calm one?' he asked, remembering the incident in their first year when she momentarily forgot she could conjure fire.  
'When you needed me to be...'

That night Harry didn't sleep well. He was haunted by the dreams that he had been having since Ron died which were full of different senarios where he could have saved him but every morning Harry woke up in a cold sweat and was brought back to reality with thump.  
This morning was no different than any of the others except it took him a moment to remember everything that had happened over the last day.  
Harry didn't open his eyes while all these thoughts came flooding back to him, he was trying to fool himself that if he didn't open his eyes then he wouldn't have to face the cruel reality without Ron and away from the Hogwarts he had grown used to.  
But Harry dragged himself out of bed, eventually, and glanced around the room to the others sleeping in the beds around him.

He walked to the one nearest him and pulled back the curtains to find a very young looking Sirius Black, asleep. Harry smiled to himself as he looked at the peron who in 6 years would become his godfather.

The lines around his eyes were gone and the dark bags under them were non-exsistent. He looked happy and this was the thing that bothered Harry the most. Sirius had no idea how his life was going to turn out.

Harry then moved to the next bed and pulled back the curtains and looked onto where Remus Lupin was lay. The physical affect of being a werewolf as starting to show on Remus even at this young age and Harry could tell that it wasn't just Remus' condition that had caused the premature grey in his hair. It was losing his best friends.

Harry shook his head and moved towards his father's bed.  
People had told Harry often enough how much he looked like his dad but now stood looking at the father he had never known Harry was shocked at how true this was, a silent tear rolled down his cheek for the parent he'd never got to know, though he thought of Hermione's words the night before and was pleased he might finally get the chance.

Then, Harry turned to the final bed a look of pure hatred on his face. In that bed was the person who had ruined his life, who had destroyed his parents and who had been the reason Sirius had spent 13 years in prison. Peter Pettigrew.  
The thought suddenly occured that he could stop all that happening. He could have his family back. If Peter died now it would solve everything! With this thought Harry picked up a pillow and moved it towards Peter's face...

**Review Responses**

**SpicySugar - **_you cant possibly be suprised about this new turn of events, it tells you it's gonna happen in the story summary. About whether they will be able to bring Ron back eventually I simply refuse to tell you or that would ruin the ending and you would stop reading and as you know YOU arent allowed to stop reading ;)_

_To be honest I don't know why I picked you to be my supa dupa reviewer :) it was totally random possibly cos you were my first reviewer. Anyway just dont forget to RR_

**Sweet Asian Angel - **_glad you liked it_


	4. Discoveries

**A/N hey dudes and dudettes, thanx alot for all the reviews for my last chapter and I hope u enjoy this one.**

Discoveries

The pillow was inches from Peter's face when Harry paused. He closed his eyes and dropped the pillow.  
Who was he kidding he couldn't do this.  
Harry rubbed his eyes suddenly wondering what time it was. He glanced down to his watch automatically but soon remembered that it had stopped working 3 weeks ago.  
Harry just shook his head and walked out of the dormitory, down the stairs into the common room.  
As he entered he looked around and found it was empty apart from a sleeping figure on the couch in front of the now glowing embers of the fire.  
Harry stepped forward and looked down at his mother. She was so beautiful.  
He turned and curled up on the nearest chair and stared into the fire, thinking.  
He thought about this whole situation.  
He thought about Hermione.  
He thought about Ron.  
And most of all, he thought about his parents.  
This was his chance to meet them, get to know them. He smiled to himself.  
'What are you smiling at?' came a voice, making Harry jump. He looked around to see Lily now sat up looking at him, smiling also.  
'Nothing in particular really.'  
'So...Harry Parker, who are you?'  
Harry gave her a look that said he didn't know what she meant.  
'Well,' she continued, 'You just appear, with explanation. What about you're parents?'  
'My parents died when I was young,' said Harry with the very strange feeling at saying this as he was talking to his mother right now.  
'Oh, I'm sorry.' A slight blush appearing on her cheeks.  
Harry just smiled at her, 'It's ok.'

At that moment Hermione walked down the girls stairs, still in her pyjamas with her hair swept up on the top of her head.  
'Oh Harry I thought I heard your voice, hey Lily.' She joined them.  
'Harry was just talking about his parents,' said Lily, 'How did they die?'  
Hermione looked sideways at Harry, 'Erm...they were murdered, by a dark wizard.'  
'Oh I know, all this Lord Voldemort buisiness is really getting horrible,' replied Lily shaking her head. Harry and Hermione jumped at his name.

He was still in power in this time, in fact he was at the height of his power. They hadnt only travelled back in time 21 years but they had travelled back in time to when Voldemort was at his worst.

Harry, Hermione and Lily talked for another half hour before the common room started to fill up and their stomachs began to rumble so when they were joined by James, Sirius and Em they made their way down to the Great Hall.

They were all sat around the Gryfindor table eating happily when James stood up and climbed on his chair. Everyone in the hall went silent much like they do when Dumbledore stands to speak. Harry looked sidewards to Lily with a confused look on his face.  
'He does this every year, considers himself the next Dumbledore,' she said smiling, 'it's usually welcome back kinda stuff, hints of some pranks, that kinda stuff.'  
Harry nodded and turned his gaze back to his father, who cleared his throat loudly.  
'Well fellow students,' he started in an accent that was very much like Dumbledore's, 'I would like to welcome you all back and I hope you had an enjoyable summer. Now this year I have a more personal request to make to one particular student. Lily Evans.' Lily, who had been eating and not paying much attention to James, looked up suddenly, her hand which was holding her fork hovering an inch from her mouth.  
'Lily,' continued James, 'Will you come out with me on a date to Hogsmede this weekend?'  
Lily looked horrified though there was a slight grin on her face. She stood up and climbed on her chair, took James' hand, looked him in the yes and said...

'No!' Lily said blankly and jumped down from the chair and started walking towards the door. James' mouth dropped open and everyone else in the hall seemed as shocked as he was that someone had rejected James Potter. Then Lily paused and turned around.  
'Only joking,' she said grinning. A huge smile appeared on his face and he jumped down from his seat and ran towards her. When they met he hugged her close to him.  
'That was just nasty,' he whispered in her ear, still smiling.  
'Well, someone has to keep you in check,' she grinned, winking.

At the Gryfindor table Harry watched his parents, as they arranged their first date. Hermione took hold of his hand under the table and smiled at him, knowing what he was feeling.

One week later  
'Hey Remus, what'cha up to?' came Sirius' voice quite loudly from across the common room.  
Remus looked up and gestured to the mountains of parchment scattered around with various homework assignments on them.  
'Well,' said Sirius,' homework's boring. Let's do something else.'  
Remus looked at him impatiently, 'No I have loads to do. Go and find James.'  
'He's gone off with Lily somewhere. They're getting really close. I wish I had that.'  
'You do have that,' replied Remus, 'remember Em..your girlfriend?' A large stupid grin spread across Sirius' face.  
'Oh yeah.'  
'Why don't you go and find her and leave me alone.'  
'She's gone into Hogsmede shopping,' said Sirus as he picked up a pile of Remus' homework from the chair beside him and put it on the floor before sitting down on the now unoccupied seat. Remus opened his mouth to protest but changed his mind, deciding it wouldn't do any good.  
'Why don't you go and find Harry or Hermione?'  
'They're in the library, I think they've got something going on between them because they seem to be there all the time and they won't give anyone a reason why. I think they're making out behind the bookcases.'  
Remus shook his head, 'I don't think so, but they are there an awful lot of the time, you think they're up to something?'  
Sirius shrugged. 'I dunno, we still don't know very much about them, they're so secretive.'  
'Well, something is not right, they're hiding something and I'm going to find out what it is.'

Meanwhile in the library  
'Dammit,' exclaimed Hermione rather loudly slamming down the book she was looking at and making several students around her look up angrily. Harry jumped at the sudden noise.  
'I can't find it, there's nothing in any of these bloody books about going FORWARD in time. We're never going to get home.' She closed her eyes and let her head fall into her hands.  
Harry closed the book he had been failing to find anything and looked at her. 'Maybe we should tell Dumbledore,' he suggested.  
Hermione looked up, 'No,' she said firmly, 'we can't. We'll get in serious trouble Harry and it might all be for nothing if he doesn't know how to send us back.'  
Harry shrugged in agreement and turned back to his book.

Little did they know that they were being watched!

'So that's what they're hiding,' said Lily turning to James, 'Thats a BIG secret.'  
'What do we do?' asked her boyfriend.  
'We should tell Dumbledore, he needs to know.' James nodded and they set off towards the headmaster's office.

10 minutes later  
'Cockroach Clusters,' said James as they approached the gargoyle that guards Dumbedore's office. It sprung to life and they entered the large round room.  
'Well, hello,' cried Dumbledore as the entered, 'and what brings my head students to my pressence?'  
'Well Professer,' said Lily. 'We have something to tell you.' She explained everything that they had just heard clearly and quickly.  
When she had finished Dumbledore looked at the pair of them in return and he couldn't help thinking how much they had grown up as well as grown together, he'd always knew they would end up together, they had always had the spark between them, they had both just been too blind to see it.  
He cleared his throat...  
'I know,' he said.  
Lily's head shot up,'WHAT! You...you...you know? How could you know and not do anything, how could you KNOW?'  
'Ok Miss Evans sit back down and I'll explain everything.' Lily took her seat next to James who hadn't said anything, he was starting to get the feeling that Dumbledore knew something important that he had no intention of telling them.  
'Well, I don't think you two will know this and it's a bit difficult to explain but you know that the people in pictures can move between other paintings of themselves, well they can also move through time to their own portraits in the future.' He looked at the couple who were looking a bit confused. 'Well, as you can imagine in most situations the people within the pictures are forbidden to tell people about the future in case they try and change it but this was an exception and I was told almost immediately.'  
Lily opened her mouth to speak then closed it again, unsure of what to say.

It was James who spoke, 'So, why haven't you told them, you surely have to do something about it?'  
Dumbledore nodded, 'You're quite right James, but they have a lesson to learn here. They are currently searching the school library for a way back to the future. Now I know that there is no way in there for them to do that. The only way for them to get back to their time is to come to me, they need to learn this lesson.'  
James and Lily looked at each other in amazement and silently got up to leave with out another word.  
'Erm...and I trust that you will keep this a secret and not even mention this to them,' said Dumbledore, as they moved towards the door. The both nodded and left the room.

Lily and James walked out of the headmaster's office in dead silence from shock.  
'I can't believe he knew,' Lily said finally. Since they had left Dumbledore's room they had been wandering aimlessly and now they found themselves outside by the lake, it was just getting dark but they didn't seem to notice as they sat down by the water.  
'There's something he's not telling us,' said James matter-of-factly.  
Lily narrowed her eyebrows, 'What makes you think that?'  
'I dunno, its just, he seemed like he was hiding something, did you notice he never made eye contact with either of us?' Lily shook her head, 'I don't know, what do you think we should do?'  
'Well,' she said, 'I don't think we should do anything, Dumbledore told us not to say anything and I think he knows best.'  
James agreed and then they headed back up to the castle hand in hand, fully intending to keep the secret.

**A/N Review Responses**

**SpicySugar - **_as much as Im sure u wud love for me to keep calling you supa dupa reviewer, i do also think it wud b a gud idea to kno your actual name, I'm Hayley btw._

_I kno u sed it wud b gd for him to kill Peter and I hav to say I completely agree that 1 less rat running about wud b good, Im afraid I cudnt do it. It wud change too much and Hermione would never speak to Harry ever again and we cant b having that can we ;) anyway, hope u liked this chapter xxx_

**Serendipity9 - **_as you can see I went with your advice of not killing Peter as much as I want to, tho I will let u in on a secret that there is going to be another death very soon..._


	5. Grief is the Hardest Feeling

**A/N Girls, Guys and those of you who arent sure yet, I want to thank everyone forthe reviews, Iwant to apologise in advance for this chapter,its a sad 1, I just hope I managed to pull it off effectively, I hav personally never lost ne1 really close to me so Ifound it hard to portray the feelings but I triedmy best, hope it duznt suck**

Grief is the Hardest Feeling

'Hey there Jamie-Boy,' said Sirius energetically as James and Lily joined everyone else in the Great Hall for breakfast. James gave him an evil eye for the name and sat down next to Hermione. Lily and himself had done as Dumbledore had asked them over the last few days and not mentioned what they had found out to anyone, including Harry and Hermione though they discussed it between themselves at every possible opportunity.  
'Hey, look here's the post,' said Remus looking up from his book (Hogwarts: a History, Harry was amused to notice) and getting hold of this glass so that it would be knocked over. It had been a full moon last night and he was looking very tired, Hermione noticed.  
A Daily Prophet landed in the cereal bowl in front of Sirius, he mumbled something about stupid owls not being able to just put things on the table, and picked up the paper, gasping at the front page.  
'Damn,' he said, 'You-Know-Who has got another family.' He held up the front page for everyone to read the heading.  
_More Brought Down by the Nameless_  
Hermione took the article from Sirius and read it quickly. It had been a muggle couple from the north of England, they had just been killed in their homes, though that was all the information about them it had given. She shook her head and looked around the others.  
'This is getting worse,' said Lily, she was particularly worried about this, as was Remus. They both had muggle parents.  
'Come on,' said Lily breaking the silence, 'We've got charms,' with that they all stood up and left the Great Hall.

They entered charms and within 5 minutes Professer Flitwick had set the group off practising summoning charms because he thought it was going to big a big part of the NEWTs.

Glancing around the room it seemed to be a perfectly normal day. Hermione, Lily and Em were chattering excitedly in the corner about what they were going to be doing for Halloween (it was rumoured that there was going to be a ball), as they were each taking it in turns to absent-mindedly summon a cushion so that they couldn't be accused of not working. All three girls were especially gifted witches, and for Lily charms was her best lesson.  
The boys, however, were making no attempt to even pretend to be working. Harry, Peter and Remus were sat on one of the desks watching James and Sirius put a dancing curse on Snape's robes. Everything _seemed_ normal.  
'Hey Lily,' called Remus suddenly, 'ain't that your owl.' Lily looked to the window that Remus was pointing at and there was indeed her owl. She glanced around to check that Flitwick was distracted (he was trying to de-curse Snape's robes) and she quickly opened the window and retrieved the letter her owl was holding. She opened it up and immediately went white, James noticed this and grabbed hold of her seconds before she fainted.

He laid her on the desk and was desperately trying to wake her up, saying her name over and over in a very worried tone, he had forgotton about the letter.  
'James,' came a voice, he looked around to see Harry looking as pale as Lily and holding the letter. He passed it to James and sat down, putting his head in his hands.  
_Dear Miss Evans,  
It is our deepest regret to inform you that, tragically, both your parents died last night at the place of their residence.  
They were killed by He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named and it is our belief that it was quick and painless, we hope this is some comfort to you,  
Deepest regrets  
Minister of Magic_

James read the letter and his mouth fell open, for a few seconds nobody moved and if anyone had walked in it would have looked like a photograph (a muggle one of course). Lily was lay unconcious on the desk, with Remus stood next to her. Sirius was stood with his arm around a crying Em. Harry was sat in a chair looking whiter than a sheet, while Hermione had hold of his hand and James stood staring into space. He released the letter from his hand it floated slowly to the ground. Then, Em let out a loud sob and buried her head in Sirius' chest.  
This noise brought everyone to their senses and James span around and picked Lily up, mumbling something to Flitwick about taking her to the hospital wing before leaving the room. Em followed them.

'Erm...,' came Flitwick's voice breaking the silence and making everyone jump, 'can...er...everyone get back to work, please?'  
Everyone turned back to their cushions and no-one spoke for the rest of the lesson.

At the end of the lesson Harry, Hermione, Remus and Sirius hurried out of the classroom as quickly as possible, they were going to the hospital wing.  
They ran along corridors, with people diving in all directions out of their way, until they around the corner to see the entrance to the hospital wing. Just as Sirius reached forward to open the door, it opened and Albus Dumbledore walked out. He looked at he group with sad eyes.  
'Professer,' said Sirius,' is she alright?'  
'Well, Master Black, physically, she is fine. She is awake and alert.' There was a release of breath around the group. Only Remus didn't.  
'Sir?' he said, 'That's not all is it?'  
Dumbledore looked at Remus for a second, realising for the first time how very grown up he had become, so quickly. 'No, Master Lupin, that's not it. Though Lily is physically fine, emotionally, she is in turmoil, this news has come as a large shock to her system and she is devastated, she is going to require alot of support from you all. This is going to be very difficult for her.' Everyone nodded, looking grave, 'You may go in now.'  
The group moved forward and when Harry, who was at the back walked past him Dumbledore put his hand on his shoulder. 'You ok, Harry?'  
Harry looked at him, slightly confused, 'Yes Sir, I'm fine.'  
With this Harry entered the hospital wing with the rest of his friends.

When they walked in Lily was sat on a bed silent tears were falling down her cheeks. James was sat beside her holding her hand and Em was perched on the bottom with the look of someone who was desperately trying not to cry. None of them were speaking.  
They walked over and Remus pulled her into a hug.  
'I have absolutely no idea what to say, but I'm really sorry Lils.'  
She smiled at him gratefully. 'I called Pertunia,' she said quietly, 'The funeral is on Thursday.'  
'I'm going to go,' said James.  
With these words Lily looked up at him gratefully, 'Really?'  
'Of course.' She smiled and kissed him.

'Thank you.'  
'Me too, of course,' said Remus. She smiled at him also.  
'Thank you I dont wana do this alone.'  
Harry raised his hand, 'Don't forget me.'  
'Or me.' came Hermione and Em simultaneously.  
Lily smiled at them all gratefully, 'Thank you all.'

That night the group, minus Lily who was still in the hospital wing, all sat around the fire in the Gryfindor common room. It was about 1am but none of them were in the mood for sleep. They had been sat for hours talking about everything they could think of, including Lily's parents and the conversation turned to them telling of the relatives they'd lost.  
'Well, I've been lucky,'said Remus, 'I've never lost any relatives.'  
'Yeah, me neither really,' added Hermione, 'not through death anyway.' As she said this her eyes moved to the floor and a tear came to her eye, she brushed it away quickly as discretely as she could. Harry knew that she was having a hard time with not seeing her parents, they had been in this time for a month now and they had spent every available moment looking for a spell to get home but they hadn't had any luck. Harry would never admit it to Hermione, but he was starting to lose hope.  
'Well, I wish I didn't know my parents,' said Sirius. They all knew he lived with James, 'but James' parents are the best.'  
James grinned and agreed, 'What about you Harry?'  
Harry looked up quickly and once again Hermione let her eyes drop to the floor. He cleared his throat, 'Both my parents died when I was a baby, I never knew either of them.'  
'I'm sorry Harry,' said Remus.  
Everyone went quiet for a few minutes then and typically it was Sirius who broke the silence, 'Hey guys, how long do you think you could dangle a house elf by his ears for?'  
Every one laughed and they lauched into a debate about Sirius' question, Hermione obviously insisting it was cruel but smiling anyway.

That weekend the whole gang was excused from school to attend the funeral, Dumbledore went also and arranged the train to come a take them to Kings Cross.  
As they sat in the church no-one spoke. Sirius gripped Em's hand and Hermione did the same with Harry's. She knew how hard this was for him and the fact that he wasn't able to show his grief for his grandparents too much without arousing suspision was making it worse so she had decided that she was just going to stay close and hold his hand. People would assume it was her who was upset as girls were more emotional than boys.

Em and Hermione immediately burst into tears when Lily walked in with the rest of her family, including a girl they assumed was her sister Pertunia (though Harry didn't need to assume), she looked terrible and Remus felt James' whole body stiffen by his side when he saw her. One look into James' face showed that he was desperately fighting tears.

The ceremony seemed to last hours and as everybody was leaving in a huge group, the friends got seperated. Hermione managed to keep hold of Harry's hand and she grabbed hold of Remus before he got pulled away but they had no idea what happened to everyone else.

When they were clear they decided to look for Lily immediately as she was definately alone. They found her with James who apparently had found her when they were still in the church. The three of them ran over and pulled Lily into a hug one after another. She looked terrible but was trying to smile.  
'Hey guys!' They turned around to see Sirius and Em running out of the crowd. After more hugs Remus looked around ,'Hey, where's Peter?' Just then there was a massive explosion and an amplified voice.  
'SEE WHAT MY MAGIC CAN DO? NO-ONE CAN MATCH THE POWER OF I, LORD VOLDEMORT!'  
Then everything and everyone went silent, not even the birds were singing.  
'YOU ARSEHOLE!' screamed Lily suddenly, 'CAN'T YOU JUST LET ME BURY MY PARENTS IN PEACE?'  
With that she fell to her knees in unconsoleble tears. James went over and held her in his arms but no-one else seemed to be able to move and no-one noticed that there was still no sign of Peter.

**Review Response**

**Michelle - **_in answer to your question bout Harry wanting to go to Dumbledore and Hermione not. Hermione is scared to go to Dumbledore cos she knows that if he duznt know a way home then no1 will and they will be stuck there 4eva. She duznt want to have to face that just yet. She's in denile. Also, she has always been able to work these things out for herself. Who was it who found out about the Basilisk? Also, as always she duznt want to get in trouble. Harry on the other hand, knows of Hermione insercurities and knows she wont go and see Dumbledore yet, but basically he's not ready to leave. He finally has everything hes eva wanted and hes not ready to give that up yet. He has no doubt in Dumbledore's ability to send them home, hes grown to see him as a solution to any problem, he simply duznt want to leave yet._

_Also, I checked out ur website n its kool, tho the fact ur a science whizz is where we differ I'm afraid. I recently dropped Biology, not my strong suit :)_

**Serendipity9 - **_hope this chapter answers you question, didnt want to do it but thought it was necessary._

_Glad you like my story, means alot :)_

**Dont forget to R&R**


	6. Crumbling

**A/N Hey dudes, im going away for a week so my next post might not be for a little while but I promise that even if its not as soon as usual I'll do it asap**

Crumbling

The next few months passed in kind of a blur, Christmas was approaching fast and though most students were getting very excited there were those who weren't.  
Lily appear to be taking her parents death better than anyone had expected though she did disappear off on her own regularly.

It was James' thought that she was hiding her emotions and she was using these little get aways to let things out. Although he felt he was being slightly selfish, this did start to bother him. He wished more than anything that Lily would just come to him and talk things over, even if she didn't want to talk he was happy just holding her when she was upset until she felt better again, but she didn't. She was distancing herself from him and though he understood that she wanted to be alone, this hurt him more than he would ever tell anyone. But despite his worries and concerns he just ignored it and kept it all to himself, he didnt want to seem like he was being selfish and only caring about himself when it was Lily who was hurting.  
He also knew that she was dreading Christmas and he saw her secretly sign up to stay at Hogwarts. He was planning on staying too.

James had also noticed that Hermione seemed very down lately. He assumed this was because she wasn't going to see her parents for the holidays. He still didn't understand Harry and her. Harry had seemed very upset at the death of Lily's parents, but he couldn't work out why. Maybe it was reminding him of the death of his own parents.

Sirius, at the moment, seemed happier than ever especially with things between him and Em going so great and he was regularly found attempting to cheer up the rest of his friends, though most of the time he failed miserably.  
Though James was happy for Sirius, he still couldn't help the slightly nagging feeling of neglect from Lily. Whenever he saw Sirius and Em together he felt a pang of jealousy and a thought of that he used to have that.

'Come on guys, get up, it's the last day of term,' said Em as she struggled to wake up the boys. Lily was stood at the door smiling at this. She had regained alot of the colour in her cheeks and was doing alot better.  
'Em...go 'way,' grunted Sirius throwing a pillow at her.  
She narrowed her eyes, took out her wand and mutterd something under her breath. Just then water appeared over the beds of the boys and soaked them all. They all jumped up at once and glared at Em who unfortunately had mispronounced the spell and had managed to cover herself in water also.  
She smiled and muttered something else that dried them all off instantly. 'There, now none of you need to shower.'  
They all laughed. 'Get out then so we can get ready,' said Remus and the girls left, reluctantly.

Sirius leaned over to James' seat, 'You ever noticed that when you're waiting for something time moves slower?'  
They were all in History of Magic and it was the last lesson of the day, last lesson of the term and everyone, even Hermione, was even less focused than usual. Most people were either chattering excitedly or starely longingly at the clock.  
James turned to him, 'Yeah, I'm sure that clock has said there is 5 minutes left for the last half hour, maybe we could just get up and leave. Do you think Binns would notice?.'

Sirius smiled, 'No, but I think your girlfriend would have something to say about it.' James nodded in agreement. Lily had been insisting for days that just because it was nearly Christmas didnt mean that they didnt have to work.  
'Hey guys, look at this.' Remus passed today's issue of the Daily Prophet over to them. There was a whole page of small articles telling of at least 8 more deaths at the hands of Lord Voldemort who the paper had now stopped naming and was simply referring to him as 'You-Know-Who'. The murders were scattered across the country but no details were given and after each article there was a small comment from the Ministry of Magic saying that they were closing in on Voldemort's whereabouts.  
James shook his head, 'This is getting really bad and if the ministry is really closing in on him I'll eat my broomstick.'  
'Just don't let Lily see this,' said Remus. The pair nodded in agreement just as the bell went for the end of term.  
There was a cheer from the surrounding classrooms and the 3 boys grinned widely, the paper now forgotton.  
They all jumped out of their seats and left the classroom.

There was to be a dance on Christmas Eve and everyone was growing more and more excited. The girls had their dresses, the boys had their dates and everything was set. Alot more students were staying at school for the holidays than usual so they could go.

James and Lily were going together, obviously and Sirius was taking Em. Harry and Hermione were going together just as friends (Lily scoffed at the 'just friends' part when she heard), Remus was taking a pretty Ravenclaw named Steffi Cole and Peter was going with a Hufflepuff called Jennie Carr.  
By Christmas Eve everyone was very hyper, except that is James and Hermione but for different reasons.  
Hermione was missing home. She was deserately missing her parents and was dreading having to spend a Christmas without them. Even though she had spent the holidays at Hogwarts before she had always had the choice to go home, now even that had been taken away.

Her and Harry hadn't given up searching for a way home but it seemed that they had searched every book in the library at least three times without any luck. She wanted to talk to Harry about how she was feeling but he seemed so happy and she didnt want to bringh im down. For the first time in he could remember he was going to be spending Christmas with his parents, his family and she didn't want to be the one to ruin that for him.  
James wasn't looking forward to the ball either but the reason he wasn't was because of Lily. She was doing much better, she seemed to be back to normal though he knew that she was still hurting but things between the two of them wasn't right anymore. He had done everything he could for her when she was going through everything with her parents but they seemed to be drifting apart. She seemed to be pushing him away and he was worried. Tonight at the ball he was gonna talk to her about it, they were going to sort it out. One way or another...

As James stood in front of the mirror and pulled his dress robes on he felt a pang of nerves in his stomach. He didn't want to have to go through tonight. He knew that when he talked to Lily it could end in one of two ways. They would talk and she would realise that she had been ignoring him but that she still wanted him and they would stay together and be happy. The other thing that could happen...he didn't want to think about it.

James shook his head and took a final look in the mirror and turned to the rest of the boys in the room.  
'You guys ready?'

Meanwhile in the girl's dormatry  
'Ok, how do I look?' said Lily doing a twirl. She was wearing a long royal blue dress with her hair swept up.  
The other girls nodded.  
'Everyone ready?' said Hermione. Lily noticed as she said this that she seemed slightly down but didn't say anything.  
Everybody nodded and headed for the door.  
'Oh hold on,' said Lily, 'I forgot my earrings. You lot just go down. Tell James I'll meet him in the Great Hall.'  
So the headed down to the common room. where the boys were waiting.

When they reached the Great Hall, James said he was going to wait outside for Lily. He was really thinking that maybe it would be better to suggest going for a walk and talk to Lily with more privacy. He was pacing the entrance hall when he heard someone say his name. He turned expecting to see Lily but it wasnt.  
It was Kim Robinson, a Ravenclaw, who James didn't know particularly well. He smiled her a hello but she walked forward, swaying, obviously drunk.  
'Erm...Kim, have you been drinking?' he asked.  
'Just a little bit,' she giggled. She was walking towards James slowly, until she came face-to-face with him. She put her hands gently around his waist and smiled.  
'Kim, I have a girlfriend, remember?' He tried to remove her hands but she clasped them together tight.  
'Yeah I know, but she's not here.'  
With this she pressed her body against his so that she couldnt get any closer.

'Come on James, you know you want me.'  
'No Kim I don't, I have Lily.' But she was convinced, she could tell by his voice that he wasnt too sure about what he had just saud. In response she put her hand on the back of his head and pulled him into a kiss.

He pulled back straight away and looked at her. Then slowly leaned forward and deepend the kiss.  
'James?' came a small voice. They pulled apart and there stood Lily dressed in a gorgeous blue dress and with tears in her eyes.

**Review Response**

**Michelle - **_hehe your like an elephant, never forgets :) lol_


	7. Merry Christmas Everyone!

**Remember ppl, reviews are our friend:D**

He pulled back straight away and looked at her. Then slowly leaned forward and deepend the kiss.  
'James?' came a small voice. They pulled apart and there stood Lily dressed in a gorgeous blue dress and with tears in her eyes.  
'Lily,' he gasped as she turned and ran.

'LILY!' Jamed shouted running after her.  
But she closed her eyes and kept running. They were sore and there were tears streaming down her cheeks but she ran as fast as she could. Unfortunately for her, he was faster. He grabbed her shoulder and pulled her into an empty room.  
'Lily, I'm so sorry. I didnt mean to.' He had hold of both her hands so she couldnt move.  
'James, how could you do this to me?' She was still crying. 'I thought you loved me?'  
'I do. I do love you,' he gasped, trying to lean in and kiss her. She pulled away.  
'No James, if you loved me you couldn't do that. You couldn't make me feel as bad as I do right now.' With that she pulled her hands free and ran out of the room. James stood staring at the door in silence, not knowing what to do or say.

She left the room in a daze, her eyes still full of tears. She just started walking, not really sure where she was going and not really caring.

Thoughts were just racing through her head.

How could he do this to me?

Why?

I thought he loved me?  
Suddenly she stopped, she wanted to talk to Em. She needed a friend, so she turned and started towards the Great Hall unware and uncaring about her appearance with the mascara she'd applied only 20 minutes ago now in streaks down her face.  
She walked into the Great Hall and spotted Em with Harry, Hermione and Sirius around one table, Peter was handing out some butterbeer. She walked over not noticing the people looking at her.  
'Em,' she gasped and the group looked up. Em and Sirius jumped to their feets and ran over.  
'Lily, what happened?' Sirius asked.  
'James,' she sobbed, 'I just saw him kissing...' With that she broke down and cried again. Em pulled her into a tight embrace.  
'Come on,' she said, 'Lets get you out of here.' She steered Lily out of the room. Harry and Hermione followed them and Remus muttered something about going to find James before heading in the opposite direction.

'Lily, try and calm down and tell us what happened,' said Hermione in a calm voice. She was sat in the Gryfindor common room with her arm around Lily. Harry, Sirius and Em sitting around.

Other than the five of them the room was empty as everyone was at the Christmas dance. 'You said you saw James kissing someone. Who?'  
Lily sobbed at the sound of James' name and looked around her friends,'K...K..Kim Robinson,' she stuttered.  
'Who's that?' asked Harry.  
'She's a Ravenclaw,' answered Sirius, 'she seems a nice enough girl but I hear she drinks a bit much. I just don't understand why James would do this. He loves you, Lily.'  
Lily's head shot up, anger flashing in her eyes suddenly. 'He doesn't love me. He never did or he wouldn't do this to me, especially after everything I've already been through.' This silenced then all. Everyone had seperate thoughts running through their heads but all of them containing one emotion. Shock!

After Lily left James in that room alone, he stayed there for a long time. He sat down on a chair and just stared into space. He had no idea how long he was sat there. Thoughts just kept racing through his head. _  
It wasn't my fault, she pushed herself on me, I didn't want it, Lily will understand that. But I did want it. Things hadn't been right for ages, she had become distant from me. But I shouldn't have done that. Why did I? I love Lily._

He didn't know how long he had been sat there with conflicting thoughts running through his brain before the door opened and Remus walked in. James barely noticed his arrival. Remus came in and sat in a chair beside James, as he did this he couldn't help noticing that his best friend looked comatose.  
'What did you do, James?'  
James looked at Remus, 'I don't know, she was just there and the next thing I knew she was kissing me and, Remus, I kissed her back.'

Just then he burst out crying. Remus had never seen James cry before (though this wouldn't be the last time) and this came as a slight shock to him. He put an arm around him and pulled him into a hug.  
'It'll be ok, man! It will be.'

'Ok, Lily's gone to bed,' said Hermione coming down the stairs from the girls dormitory, 'Don't think she'll sleep for a while though.' She had now changed out of her dress she'd been wearing for the dance and took a seat next to Harry. Just then Sirius came down from the boys' dorm looking tired. He sat down and put his arm around Em.  
'James is a state,' he said, 'I have no idea how this happened. It just seemed like a moment of weakness on James' part but things aren't gonna be the same again.' Everyone shook their heads.

Lily and James had been so happy just a few months ago and now it had all fallen apart, it seemed a shame after it took them so long to get together for their relationship to only last 3 months.  
'Hey Harry, what's wrong,' said Remus suddenly.  
Harry's head shot up, 'What?' he asked.  
'You seem a bit quiet, you ok?'  
'Yeah, I'm fine, just bit surprised,' he answered but he wasn't and only Hermione knew why. For Harry this was like his parents divorcing only it wasn't. He didn't understand. He knew they ended up together but now he didn't know how it would ever possibly happen.

The group stayed up for another hour or so before Hermione told them that they had all better go to bed because it was Christmas tomorrow. When she said this there were a few gasps. They had all forgotton in the trouble. It was Christmas Day tomorrow and it didn't even feel like it.

The next morning Lily woke but didn't open her eyes. She could hear her friends moving around the room and talking in whispers.  
'Do you think we should wake her up?'  
'I dunno, I don't think she slept well, she was muttering in her sleep.'  
'Yeah, I heard but it's Christmas and it might make her feel better.'  
'Don't worry, I'm up,' said Lily sitting up in her bed. Hermione and Em were both sat on Em's bed but when they saw her awake they both got up and rushed over.  
'Are you ok, Lily?' asked Em timidly. Lily thought about this for a moment then nodded.  
'Yeah I'll be ok. It's just a little strange, you know,' they both nodded, 'Anyway, where's my presents?' She smiled weakly and her friends jumped up and each grabbed packages from their own trunks before returning to Lily's bed.  
'Here, open mine first,' said Em and handed Lily a bright pink parcel withm a blue ribbon around it. She opened it and pulled out a red jumper of a very special magic material which gave it the appearance of water in the hand but the wearer could adjust it to whatever bagginess she wanted.  
Lily grinned, 'It's beautiful, thank you.'  
She crawled to the bottom of the bed and pulled out two neatly wrapped presents and handed them to each of them, 'You have to open them together.' So they did and each found an identical ring with all three of their initials on it. 'I have one too, they're friendship rings.'  
They thanked her and Hermione gave her her gift which was a beautifully bound book of poems. As Lily opened this tears filled her eyes trying desperately to hide them but failing. The other two girls pulled her into a tight hug and the three of them sat there together like that for a long time.

'MERRY CHRISTMAS!' came Sirius' voice as the girls entered the common room and before they knew it he was hugging each of them in turn. Even Lily smiled at this but her smile soon faded as she looked across the room and saw James. He was stood staring at her but she broke her glance away and turned and hugged Harry and Remus. There were a million thoughts running through her head but she brushed them away one by one. She was not going to let him ruin her Christmas.  
'Come on guys,' she said in a bright voice, 'Lets go to breakfast.' With that she turned and walked straight past James out of the portrait hole.  
Remus caught eyes with James and saw tears again mixing with the deep hazel.

After breakfast the group sat in the common room and exchanged presents. There were smiles on all their faces (especially when Remus' present from Sirius blew up in his face) but they were false smiles. They all felt the tension.

Lily ignored James all day though he stared at her constantly and the present she had got him stayed upstairs in her trunk.

Hermione couldn't concentrate on presents and Christmas. She was thinking about her parents. She missed them terribly and this was the worst day so far. Sure, she had spent Christmas without them before but before she had always had the choice of spending it with them if she'd wanted. She wondered what they were doing and if they missed her. She had searched every book she could get her hands on a hundered times, she'd even sneaked into the restricted section of the library to look in there but there was nothing at all about travelling forward in time.  
She was getting desperate. She was starting to think that they should go and see Dumbledore because she truely believed that if anyone could send them home it would be him. But a part of her was scared and for once not because of any punishment he might issue but because if he couldn't send them home then they were really stuck there forever. He was their last hope and she didn't want to risk having to use it.

After everyone had opened their presents Remus, Harry and Sirius went down to the kitchens to see if they could steal some hot chocolate for them and the others stayed in front of the fire in the common room talking.

'I think I'm gonna go get a warmer jumper on,' said Lily, standing up and heading for the staircase to their dormitory. When she entered the first thing she saw was a small package on her bed. She stared at it for a few seconds, and knew two things straight away. Who it was from and that she really didnt she want to open it?  
Lily walked over to the bed, sat down and picked up the present. It was small and wrapped in a red foil paper. She moved it from one hand to another and stared at it for a few minutes before her fingers started to unwrap it against her own will.  
With the paper off it revealed a small box. She lifted the lid and saw a heart locket on a thin chain. She gasped at it, it was so beautiful. She gently lifted it out and looked closer on the back was an inscription _I love you more than life itself, may us never be apart, James_.  
'May us never be apart,' Lily said to herself out loud, 'Bit late for that.' And with that she put the locket back into it's box and dropped it into her trunk. She closed her eyes in an attempt to stop the tears but it, once again, failed. She sat down on her bed and sobbed and that was how Em found her ten minutes later as she came up to announce the arrival of hot chocolate.


	8. Separation

**A/N Hi guys, this chapter is kinda depressing, depressed me writing it but it has to be in here. Nothing much happens though our head students get a nasty shock at the end, but this chapter is mainly to portray some characters feelings**

Separation

After the hot chocolate was reduced to mere drops, everyone went out for a snowball fight in the newly fallen snow which seemed to have appeared magically (and quite possibly hadd) but Lily refused saying she wanted to read a book while the common room was empty. Really she just wanted some time alone.  
Unfortunately, she wasnt gonna get any.

What she didn't notice was that after everyone was left she wasnt the only one in the common room.  
'Lily...' she jumped and turned to see James, hovering awkwardly by the portrait hole with his hands shoved deep into his pockets.  
'I don't wana talk to you,' she said and turned back to her book, praying that he would just take the hint and leave. But, being James, he didn't.  
'Lily, I'm so sorry for everything, I didn't mean it.' She didn't look up from her book. 'It was a stupid mistake that will never happen again.' She still kept her head down. 'Lily, I love you.' With this he got a reaction. Her head shot up and she got up from her seat and walked towards him, pointing her finger at his chest.  
'You don't love me, if you did you could never hurt me like this.' At these words, she spun around and walked up the stairs to her dormitory, James ran to follow but when his feet touched the bottom step it turned into a slide and he slid back down. He sat on the floor at the bottom defeated with his head in his hands.

Remus came back from the snowball fight at around 5:30 because he was due to 'change' that night and he wanted to say he was going to bed early but when he entered the common room he saw James sat at the bottom of the girl's stairs in the same position he had been in since Lily ran upstairs, hours earlier. He looked up when the portrait hole opened.  
Remus saw he had tears on his cheeks.  
'I've really messed this one up, Moony.'  
Remus walked over to his friend and sat down beside him. 'You want the truth or what you what to hear?' he asked simply.  
James looked at him, 'I want the truth.'  
'Well,' Remus started, 'Yes, you have messed it up. Big time. You were an idiot and I know you regret it now but that's just not good enough. Now, I'm your mate, Prongs, and I want you to be happy, I hate seeing you like this but you have really fucked this up and I doubt she'll ever forgive ya.'  
For a few minutes there was a deadly silence and then James sighed, 'I know, but I love her, I really do. I just wish I'd told her before all this.'  
'I know you do, James, there is no way you would be going through this if you didn't love her and I have known you a long time and you haven't ever been as happy as you have been over the last 3 months since you've had her.'  
'Oh Remus, what am I going to do?' James started crying again and Remus pulled him into a hug. Acceptance was the worst part of any loss.  
Up at the top of the stairs was a red-headed girl with tears in her eyes who had heard every word.

It was probably a good thing that Lily and James broke up while it was the holidays because neither of them felt at all like going to class and facing everyone but the day when they would have to was quickly approaching. Over those few weeks Lily was wishing, for the first time ever, that she hadn't been made Head Girl because at least that way she could blend into the background but everyone knew her and James and just fading in wasn't going to happen.  
When all the rest of the school returned to Hogwarts they were all soon informed of the separation by those who had stayed over Christmas.  
There were a number of stories going around about what had happened, most of which weren't true. Some involved Lily standing up in the Great Hall and slapping James across the face and another had Lily putting James in a full body bind and refusing to release him for 3 days. There was also some extremely nasty ones which caused Sirius, after hearing one of them one day, to hex a Slytherin 5th year until he had to spend the rest of the day in the hospital wing.

But Lily kept her head up and ignored these tales. She threw herself into her revision for her upcoming NEWTs, into her Head Girl duties and ignored everything and everyone around her.

James, on the other hand, sunk as far into the background as possible. He had stopped the pranks, stopped playing the clown, even stopped teasing Snape. He just sat in his room all day staring into space, replaying that horrible moment over and over again, thinking about how he could have acted differently.

Meanwhile, they weren't the only people who were suffering from their break up. All their friends were having a hard time with it as they felt they were just being stuck in the middle all the time and it was driving them all apart, Soon there was a definate divide down the middle of the group with some on Lily's side and some on James'. Though everyone was constantly trying as hard as possible to pretend like everything was alright, they were all suffering. The group started spending more and more time separately because when they were all together the tension and awkwardness hung in the room like another person.

Of everyone it was affecting though, there was one person everyone overlooked.

Harry would spend this entire situation in the middle, it was very uncomfortable for him as it always is for the child when his parents are divorcing. He went very quiet and started to only really talk to Hermione but there were thoughts in his head that he wouldn't even tell her about.

Three days after the whole school had returned after the holidays, Dumbledore called a meeting with the head boy and girl and the 6th and 7th year prefects. As soon as Lily heard about this she flinched. James would be there, he was Head Boy and none of her other friends were going to be there for her to talk to and distract her from him. She was sure he would try and talk to her again.  
So far, he hadn't since Christmas day but she thought that that was only because she was always surrounded by people. She spent the whole day leading up to the meeting dreading it. Thinking of things she would say if he tried to talk to her and by the time it was time for her to leave the comfort of her dorm room and head up to Dumbledore's office she was a nervous wreck. She left a little late, hoping to arrive just as it was starting so that he wouldn't get chance to talk to her and it worked. She entered the room just as Dumbledore was starting to talk. Lily sighed and sat down in a chair at the far side of the room to James.

'Thank you for coming,' Dumbledore said with a grin, 'I have some fairly exciting news. There is to be a talent competition to be held here at Hogwarts in a month's time. We will not be the only school participating but we shall be the host.'  
Lily suddenly had a smile on her face, she loved to sing and she wasn't too bad at it either.  
'This competition will be open to all students and there will be a prize of 1000 galleons.' There was a slight gasp around the room. 'Now, I will announce this at breakfast tomorrow morning but I thought I had better let you all know first as it will be you who organises it. You shall be in charge of everyone participating and you shall have to hold auditions. You must organise decorations and other arrangements for the night. Obviously our head boy and girl will be in charge of you as a commitee and you will report to them with any ideas. The event will be held on Valentine's Day, February 14th at 7pm. Good Luck.'

With this everyone rose to leave.  
'Erm...Lily, James,' said Dumbledore before they left the room, 'could I have a quick word with you two.'  
They eyed each other for a second before returning to their seats. Dumbledore noticed how far apart they sat and thought suddenly that what he was about to say may not go down so well but he cleared his throat.  
'Well, it is a compulsary tradition within this competition that the hosting school's head boy and girl perform a song together.'  
Lily's smile disappeared instantly, 'No sir, no, please. Please say we don't have to.'  
'I'm very sorry Miss Evans, if it was down to me you wouldn't have to but it's a tradition.'  
Lily sank to her seat, covering her face with her hands. Dumbledore looked at James who had not said a word. He was just sat with his eyes to the floor.  
'I'm sorry, you may now go.'  
The pair rose and left the room, as they reached the bottom of the stairs James said, 'Lily.'  
'Don't you talk to me,' she snapped back and turned and ran.


	9. Sing Your Heart Out!

**A/N Nxt chapter, Im sorry it took so long, I have exams in two weeks and ive bin very busy.**

**Im not really sure if I like this chapter, its a bit of a filler chapter but it has definately got some drama so enjoy**

Well, maybe this will turn out to be a good thing,' said Em, Lily had just told her about the song James and her were going to have to sing together.  
'How could it possibly be a good thing?'  
'You and James might work things out,' inputted Hermione. The three girls were sat at the table in the Great Hall. It was breakfast time but it was a Saturday so everyone else was having a lie in. The girls, however, hadn't slept. They had been up all night considering Lily's predicament and still hadn't come up with a bright side when Em's stomach rumbled and they decided it was time for breakfast. What they didn't know was the boys had had about the same amount of sleep as them and spent the night having pretty much the same conversation.  
'But I don't want to work things out. I am never gonna let myself get hurt like this again. Never. And that means staying away from James bloody Potter.' Lily said this with such certainty than none of the other two girls dared argue.  
Just then Remus walked into the hall, looking as exhausted as they did though none of them mentioned it. He spotted the girls and sat down next to Hermione.  
He looked at Lily's angry face, 'Been talking about the duet then have you,' he said. Lily flashed him an angry look.  
'What's he been saying about it?' she said.  
'Not much,' replied Remus looking slightly scared, which was actually true despite the fact thats all they have discussed for the past 12 hours, 'Just told us about it.'  
Lily nodded and turned back to her eggs. No-one said much for the rest of the meal but Lily was getting the perfect idea for a song.

Over the next few weeks the excitement about the contest grew. There were students practicing in every available corner and classroom and some pupils (and the odd teacher) had taken to walking around with ear plugs in.

The most contact Lily had had with James on the subject was that she left lyrics to the song on his pillow with a note saying, 'LEARN.'  
She was dreading it in every way possible but she was also successfully distracting herself organising everything. It did her good to keep working, then she didn't think performance. Everyone around the school was talking about it. They all knew the situation with Lily and James and although they all had their own opinions they all agreed this was going to be highly entertaining.

'Anyone, here play an instrument?' said Sirius, randomly to the group while they were sat doing homework around the common room fire.  
'Erm...I play a little guitar,' said Remus, not looking up from his potions essay, 'I went throught a stage a few years back where that's all I wanted to do.' Sirius nodded.  
'My parents made me take guitar lessons when I was younger, I never really wanted to but I'm not bad,' said Hermione, Harry gave her a suprised look, he didn't know that.  
'Well, I don't,' said Harry.  
'Me neither,' said Em.  
'Yeah, but you to can both really sing,' said Sirius, 'I listen outside the shower.' There was a grin on his face but he got some funny looks. 'We should form a band and enter this talent thing, you should see my skill on a set of drums.'  
They all looked around varily, unsure before saying 'No!' firmly.

Sirius spend the next 2 hours shooting curses at them all until they agreed.

'Ok guys, you ready?' said Em nervously. She was stood in front of a microphone with song words in her hand. The 'band' were in a small room they had found empty. This was their first practice and she was fairly dreading it. She was sure this was all going to turn out a disaster. Everyone nodded in answer to her question.  
She glanced at Harry who was stood next to her with his song words as the music started playing, so far so good she thought.

He took a deep breath before opening his mouth and singing the words in his hands quite shakily at first though as his verse continued and his confidence grew, Hermione found herself slightly surprised by his voice. She had never heard him sing before and he was quite good.

Em took a deep breath, feeling very pleased at that moment that she wouldn't have to sing first. However, as Harry's part came to an end she turned her eyes to her lyrics nervously, reading the words regardless of the fact she knew them by heart already.

She looked at her friends and closed her eyes as she opened her mouth.

'Hey that sounded good,' said Sirius. Em's eyes snapped open at the sound of her boyfriend's voice. She smiled, that wasn't as hard as she'd been expecting.  
'Why you stop that was only the first part?' said Hermione.  
Sirius shrugged, 'Cos I don't know the rest of the music yet.'  
'Ok lets go over that again.'

'Lily.' she kept walking faster. 'Lily you have to talk to me, we have to sing this song together for God's sake.'  
'No James,' she snapped, stopping suddenly, 'I don't have to talk to you at all, leave me alone.'  
'But the song.'  
'Screw the song, I gave you the music, learn it.'  
'Lily, you're being silly.'  
'Silly...silly, James you cheated on me. I think I'm being totally sane.' With that she turned and ran as fast as she could.

'That streamer needs to be a little higher! You over there, don't eat that it's not real! I want a couple more balloons up there! No...No...No...thats not right at all!' Lily was in the Great Hall, it was February 14th the day on the big talent show and it was 8:15 in the morning but already everyone was up either because of excitement, because they were practicing or because Lily had them up helping.  
The participating students from Beaubaxtons and Durmstrag would be arriving at midday and the show was due to start at 7pm. Lily had a clip board in front of her with a list of things to do and was currently bellowing orders at people around her. They didn't particularly mind though some were still grumpy from being up so early on a Saturday morning.  
'Hey Lils, where you want this?' it was Remus carrying a large box which contained a load of electronic equipment.  
'Erm...up on stage.'  
'Ok,' he said and disappeared.  
Lily rubbed her temples, she could feel a headache coming on. She was dreading having to sing with James tonight, fortunately she had chosen a song which wouldn't require them to be too cosy.

Suddenly there was a crash behind her which caused her to loose her train of thought. She cringed before turning and saw that Peter had walked into Remus and all the equipment had been dropped. Lily cursed under her breath before muttering a spell which caused all the broken pieces to fix themselves. The boys looked at her with guilty looks on their faces.

Harry cringed. There was currently a Beaubaxton 5th year girl up on stage and her version of Britney Spears' Toxic sounded like a cat having it's eyes clawed out.  
It was currently 9pm and the talent show had been going on for and hour and 15 minutes (they had had a late start due to Peter being nervous and accidently jinxing all of the Gryfindor Hufflepuffs into squirrels). Alot of the contestants were quite good, one or two were very very good, and some were just down-right terrible. Harry and his friends were up next and he was almost glad that this girl was so bad because it might make them look better.  
Just then Lily called their names and Harry walked to the stage with Em, Sirius, Remus and Hemione following him. They took their positions and started playing. Harry glanced sidewards at Em and saw a look of pure horror on her face. He moved closer to her squeezing her hand, 'Just like we practised,' he whispered and she smiled a weak smile.

He moved back towards his microphone and let the lyrics flow from his mouth.

Harry smiled, he'd got through first verse and he looked at Em, who was now visibly shaking.

He winked at her once more and saw her close her eyes as she always did when she sang and listened as her voice rang out.

When they finished there was a seconds silence before the whole crowd exploded with applause. People were stood on chairs clapping madly.  
Harry let out a sigh of relief and turned and hugged Em. He looked around at all the others who were smiling and hugging each other madly.  
They had done it!

'Ok everyone,' said Dumbledore, 'It is now time to judge the winners then we will hear a song from my head boy and girl.' Lily groaned. 'Now, our judges have been taking note after each performance the reaction of the crowd, you students and we have decided the winner.' Finger were crossed throughout the Great Hall, 'The winner, or should I say winners are...from Hogwarts, Em, Harry, Sirius, Remus and Hermione.'  
Everyone cheered and the group stood up to retrieve their prize money.  
Harry leaned over to Hermione,

'How jealous will Ron be when we tell him about this?' Then his face fell and so did hers. He had forgotton. It had been six months since Ron died and he had forgotton all about it just for that second. Just for that second he had been excited to tell Ron their good news.  
Hermione looked at him, 'Harry,' she whispered, 'we have to go home.' He nodded and they continued on their way up to stage.

'AND NOW,' said Dumbledore's bellowing voice, 'AS TRADITION GOES MY HEAD BOY AND GIRL WILL SING DUET SO LET ME INTRODUCE LILY EVANS AND JAMES POTTER.' There was a series of claps as the two of them walked up onto the stage from opposite ends of the Great Hall. As they got on stage James gave Lily a small smile which she didn't return, she just walked over to her microphone and took it out of its stand. James did the same and he moved to centre stage, looking at Lily expecting her to do the same but she looked at him and walked over to the front of the stage where she sat down with her legs dangling off the edge.  
The music started...James start singing.

James

_I need a little time To think it over I need a little space Just on my own_

As he sung this he walked over so that he was stood behind Lily

James  
_I need a little time To find my freedom I need a little..._

Lily  
_Funny how quick the milk turns sour Isn't it, isn't it Your face has been looking like that for hours Hasn't it, hasn't it Promises, promises turn to dust Wedding bells just turn to rust Trust into mistrust _

After Lily started she stood up and faced James directly.

James  
_I need a little room To find myself I need a little space To work it out I need a little room All alone I need a little..._

Lily  
_You need a little room for your big head, don't you? don't you? You need a little space for a thousand beds, won't you? Won't you? Lips that promise - fear the worst, tongue so sharp - the bubble burst. Just into unjust _

During her verse Lily started walked towards James with him backing away from her, a look of anger on her face. To anyone watching who didn't know Lily and James' history they would of thought this was just a good peice of acting but their friends started to cringe- this was going to be bad.

James

_I've had a little time, to find the truth, now I've had a little room to check what's wrong, I've had a little time and I still love you, I've had a little... _

Lily  
_You had a little time and you had a little fun, didn't you? Didn't you? While you had yours do you think I had none, do you? Do you? The freedom that you wanted back is yours for good I hope you're glad, sad into unsad. _

_I had a little time to think it over, had a little room, to work it out. I found a little courage to call it off, I've had a little time, I've had a little time, I've had a little time, I've had a little time._

'But Lily I love you,' said James suddenly.

This wasn't part of the song and everybody knew it.

'James, no you don't or you wouldn't have kissed someone else, now just leave me the hell alone.' With that she turned to leave but James grabbed her arm and she looked back at him.

'Lily, if you leave me I don't know what I'll do. I'll die,' he said pleadingly.

Her head hung for a moment then she looked up,'Then die.' She pulled her arm loose of his grip and turned and ran out of the Great Hall.


	10. Maybe What is Broken Shouldn't be Fixed

**A/N really really sorry about the wait, im in the middle of my A-Level exams, literally, did 1 2day n have another 1 on wednesday. Argh!**

**But anyway, this chapter is quite sad, all about realisation n theres a lovely cliffy at the end for u 2 all h8 me for.**

**Enjoy!**

Maybe What is Broken Shouldn't be Fixed

James stood there for a minute in silence, every eye on him.

It was over.

Really over.

He had known that they weren't together anymore, obviously, but he hadn't realise until 10 seconds ago that they would never be together ever again. He did love her, that much was true but she didn't believe him and in a way he didn't blame her. He tried to imagine how he would have felt if he had discovered her kissing some other boy. He would have been devastated, then he would have been angry. So angry. _I'm such an idiot_ he thought to himself. _I deserve all of this. Everything she says, I deserve it. Oh God, why did I let her kiss me? Why didn't I push her away?_

James moved his hands up to his face and rubbed his eyes. He had a headache coming on, he could feel it. Not a suprise really he always got headache when he was upset and right now he was definately upset. _I don't know if I can do this,_ he thought._ But I guess I have to._

He hung his head and felt that familiar burning behind his eyes that indicated that tears were close.

He looked up. Everyone was staring at him. _I've got to get out of here!_ With that he turned and ran out of the Great Hall into the Entrance Hall.

When he was outside he stopped, tears streaming down his face. He heard footsteps behind him and turned. Sirius...

Lily ran out of the Great Hall and just kept on running. She ran outside and right down to the lake where she collapsed and lay on the grass with tears pouring down her cheeks.  
_I did the right thing,_ she thought,_ I had to make him realise that its over. I cant be with someone who would lie to me and say that he loved me when he didn't._

Lily's biggest mistake was that she didn't think for a second that he actually did love her, despite what she had heard him say to Remus, it was all a lie. As far as she was concerned the fact that he kissed someone else displayed exactly what he felt for her.

Nothing.

Oh, but she loved him, even after everything that had happened she still loved him with all her heart, that was why this was hurting so much. _I cant take him back. I could never trust him ever again and what kind of a relationship is it without any trust? No, that's not an option. He hurt me too much._

With that final thought Lily let out a loud sob and let her head fall into her arms. She sat there like that for a long time, she wasn't sure exactly how long but it had gotton dark. And cold. But she barely even noticed.

She didn't move from that position until she heard footsteps behind her. _Please dont let it be James._ She thought wildly. She spun around and let out a sigh of relief. It was Em and Hermione...

'Damn, that was harsh Prongs,' said Sirius. James flashed him a look which said, 'Thanks for the sympathy'.  
'OK, OK, I'm sorry. It's just... I dunno what to say, I mean no girl's told me to die before, I've had a 'go to hell', 'get eaten by a flobberworm', and a 'tie rocks to your feet and jump into the lake' but you beat me on this one.' At this even James had to give a little smile. Sirius wasn't the best person when it came to needing sympathy but he could make you smile. 'Anyway,' he said, 'could be worse.'  
James looked up and raised his eyebrows, 'How could it be worse?'  
Sirius considered for a moment then said, 'Well, you could be in Azkaban for betraying your best friends and killing them and loadsa other wizards while being in league with you-know-who.'  
'Yeah, that would be bad,' said James.  
'You're telling me,' exclaimed Sirius, 'I'm you're best friend, I don't want you to betray me and be the reason I'm dead.'  
At this James laughed. 'Thanks Sirius, for a moment there you made me forget.' But even as James said this a dark look came over his face. How was he supposed to do this? How was he supposed to get over the only girl he's ever been in love with?  
Sirius saw this look, 'Listen Prongs, I can't tell you how you're meant to handle this but I think you really need to accept it now that it's over. It's time to move on because you can't dwell on Lily for the rest of your life.'  
'You're probably right,' replied James, 'But we gotta move now because I can hear everyone coming out of the Great Hall, really don't wanna be seen.' With that the two friends walked towards their common room, neither of them really saying much but a thousand thoughts running through both of their heads.

The two girls sat down beside Lily and put a comforting arm around her shoulders. Lily let out a sob, 'I don't know what to do. I love him so much and I don't want us to not be together but I just dont know if I can ever trust him again.'  
Hermione turned to her and said, 'Lily, you and James are meant to be together, trust me. Maybe you two just need some time apart to sort yourselves out.'

Lily looked at Hermione with thoughtful eyes for a second, thinking about what her and James had discovered about Hermione and Harry being from the future. Did Hermione know something that Lily didn't?  
'Maybe, you're right,' said Lily.  
'Of course she's right,' piped up Em, suddenly, 'Lil, we've all seen the way you and James look at each other. Even now that things aren't good between you two you still have that look in your eyes when you are staring at each other when the other person isn't looking. You two don't see it but we do.' Hermione nodded certainly. Em wasn't just saying that either, it was obvious to everybody, even those who didn't know them. Lily and James had that kind of love that everyone dreamed of, even if they didn't know it themselves.  
Hermione was just about to say this when Lily let out another loud sob. 'But what am I going to do? I can't take him back now, I can't look at him the same way and with all those things I've said to him I doubt he would want me even if I did want him back.'  
'Of course he will want you, Lil,' said Em, 'He loves you.'  
Suddenly Lily was on her feet, anger flashing in her eyes, 'No he doesn't, don't you get that. If he loved me he wouldn't hurt me like this. If he loved me he would feel what I feel right now and he would never ever have let me feel like this. Never.' After this speech Lily legs went limp and she sat back down on the floor. 'I just don't know if I can take him back because what if it happens again. I don't think I could handle this twice.'  
After that all three girls were silent. They moved together into a group hug and sat like that in silence for a long time, only moving when it started to rain.

The next morning everyone was acting strangely around Lily and James, who were, not surprisingly, avoiding each other. There was also something else very strange but only Harry noticed it. Hermione wasn't in class all morning, in fact he hadn't seen her all day because she didn't turn up at breakfast either so at dinner he decided to go look for her.  
He was just heading to the common room after a rather horrible Potions lesson (though he was doing considerably better seeing as he didn't have to be taught by Snape anymore) when he heard a high pitched shriek of his name and turned to see Hermione running towards him looking extremely excited and rather flushed in the cheeks.  
'Hermione, what?'  
'No time to explain here, come, follow me quickly.' With that she grabbed hold of his hand and dragged him into the closest empty classroom where she shut and locked the door behind them. Harry barely had time to look around but he did noticed that this appeared to be an old Defense Against Dark Arts classroom with pictures of various dark creatures on the walls, all trying to look as scary as possible. He just stared at Hermione, waiting for an explanation which she seemed to excited to give. She was bouncing up and down madly with a huge grin on her face.  
'I've found it, I think,' she said. Harry still stared at her blankly. 'I've found the way home.'

**A/N Plz cn every1 Read n Review, cos im nt gettin very many n i dnt kno if ppl jus rnt reading this or if ppl jus rnt reviewing so if every1 hu reads this chapter could plz send a review that wud b really gr8, jus so i kno ur there :)**


	11. Home is where the heart is Or is it?

'I've found it, I think,' she said. Harry still stared at her blankly. 'I've found the way home.'

Harry's mouth dropped open and a distraught expression appeared on his face.

_'But..._I have to say goodbye to my parents.'  
It was then that Hermione stopped bouncing and the smile fell from her face. She had known this was going to be hard for Harry, there was really nothing for him at 'home' and here he had everything he had ever wanted. He had his parents, Sirius was still alive and not to mention he didn't have to be taught by Snape anymore. This was going to be really difficult.  
'Oh Harry, I'm so sorry, I got all worked up at the idea of being able to see my parents again that I forgot that you'd be leaving yours.' Harry's head hung and Hermione took hold of one of his hands in both of hers until he looked up into her eyes again. 'Ok, we'll go to the common room and Great Hall now, it's lunch time so none of them will be in class but Harry,' she paused, 'we can't tell them that we are leaving. They will want an explanation and we just can't give them that.' Harry nodded and they headed for the Gryfindor common room.

To Harry the walk seemed to take an eternity though he wished with all his heart that it would take a bit longer. He didn't wanna do this.

When they entered the common room all of their friends were sat around the fire talking and laughing. Harry stood at the portrait hole for just a second. _Where I'm going 3 of these people are dead and one of them is working with Voldemort._ Harry took a deep breath and, with a squeeze of his hand from Hermione for encouragement, they walked forward.  
'Hey guys,' Sirius said smiling widely. 'Here, settle this argument. Jamie-Boy here thinks that he will be the first one of us lads to have children. When I think it will be me who will pass on my good-looks, intelligence, amazing sense of humor...'  
'...bad smell, arrogant attitude, annoying jokes,' James finished for him. Harry couldn't help but smile as they looked to him for an answer.  
'Well,' he cleared his throat, 'I think it'll be James.'  
'Yes!' cheered James, punching the air in triumph. 'Thank you, Harry, just for that I'm gonna name my first son after you.' James laughed at this but Harry was fighting back tears and all he could manage was a weak smile, his breathing was getting quite uneven and Hermione noticed this.  
'Come on Harry, we've got to go,' she said taking hold of his arm gently. Harry nodded.  
'Ok, see ya soon,' Remus said, smiling and everyone else also said bye or waved enthusiastically in the case of Sirius.  
'Bye everyone,' said Harry, 'Bye Lily, bye James.'  
With that the pair left the portrait hole, both with tears in their eyes. As they walked Harry couldn't help thinking that that was the hardest thing he ever had or ever will have to do.

They stopped a few corridors away and Hermione pulled Harry into a hug.  
'It'll be ok,' she said, but she also had tears running down her face.

'Ok, this is how I think we'll get home,' Hermione explained to Harry, as they were walking back into the room where Hermione had broken Harry's heart just 45 minutes before. He was sitting in silence on one of the old desks, listening to Hermione's explanation with a look of pure misery on his face.  
'Well, you know how the time turner works by letting the sand run through the hour glass after each turn,' she didn't wait for a response from Harry before she continued, clearly in 'professor mode', 'well, I think that if I can use a spell and make the sand run upwards through the glass rather than down it will reverse the effect and send us forward in time rather than backwards.'  
Harry nodded and stood up, moving closer to Hermione so she could loop the necklace around his neck.

She was currently muttering some words under her breath and holding her wand ready. What she was saying, Harry didn't really care about, he was trying to think of a positive side to having to leave everyone he loved, then suddenly he had a thought.  
'Hermione, stop.' Hermione stopped chanting and looked at him, questioningly. 'When are you sending us back to.'  
She lowered her eyebrows, 'Well, I'm sending us back to our time, when do you think?'  
'No, no, no,' said Harry, 'I mean, make sure that you send us back to _before_ Ron, you know, or else this has all been pointless.'  
Hermione nodded and continued with her chant. Harry started counting in his head, 5 seconds and they would be leaving.  
4 seconds

He held his breath.  
3 seconds

He closed his eyes.  
2 seconds

He gripped Hermione's hand.  
1 second  
This was it!

Harry closed his eyes even more tightly and held on to Hermione. They were so close that he could feel her chest rise and fall in sharp breaths.

Then...nothing.

No bright lights.

No feeling of being lifted off the ground.

No transportation through time.

Nothing.  
He opened his eyes and looked down at Hermione who was staring directly forward with a look of horror and disbelief on her face, her chest rising and falling rapidly.  
'It didn't work,' she muttered before breaking down crying, tears rolling uncontrollably down her cheeks. She angrily pulled the chain off from round her and Harry's necks and threw it on the floor, letting out a scream as she did so. Harry watched the sand start to run out onto the floor as the tiny hourglass shattered. She walked away a few steps before spinning around and looked at Harry.  
'That should have worked. Why didn't it work?' She was looking at him like he had all the answers.  
'I don't know Hermione, but it's ok, we'll find another way,' Harry said. He stepped forward to give her a hug but she pushed him off, angrily.  
'No Harry, you don't get it. I have been searching for 6 months now. There is no other way.'  
'It's ok,' said Harry.  
'Of course it's ok for you,' shouted Hermione with her fists clenched by her sides. 'This is exactly what you wanted. Congratulations!'  
A hurt expression spread across Harry's face and immediately Hermione felt guilty, 'I'm sorry,' she said and falling to her knees she started crying again.

Harry took hold of her in his strong arms and pulled her close, whispering words of comfort that she didn't hear in her ear. He held her for a long time with no intention of letting her go and she was extremely grateful to him.

He pulled back slightly to look at her face and placed his hands on both of her cheeks. They locked eyes and Hermione immediately stopped crying. She felt herself moving towards him. Her face closer to his. Her lips towards his. She didn't know what they were doing and neither did he but right then, in that small abandoned classroom Harry Potter and Hermione Granger shared their first kiss...

**A/N PLEASE R&R**


	12. Sometimes it's just too Hard to Resist

The pair pulled apart slowly and looked into each others eyes with an identical look of surprise on each of their faces. Both of their mouths were hanging open and there was a few seconds of silence before Harry spoke first...  
'What the bloody hell was that?' Hermione looked at him and he had the strangest look of complete and utter shock on his face that she burst out laughing. He looked at her for a second looking very hurt. 'Was I that bad?' He asked with dead seriousness.  
This only made Hermione laugh more. 'No,' she gasped, struggling to breathe 'I was laughing at your face. You looked so surprised.'  
Harry relaxed and smiled back. 'Well, aren't you suprised?' he asked with a tone of mocking in his voice, 'I know, you've been planning this for months, haven't you. This whole time travel thing has been one big, evil plot to ensnare me!' Harry could barely finish this joking accusation for laughing so hard.

They moved apart and just looked at each other for a second.  
'I think that was a mistake,' Hermione said in a tone that said that she didn't _think_ it was a mistake, she _knew_ it was.  
'Oh, thank God you think so too,' said Harry gasping a sigh of relief. 'So...still friends?' she enquired, tilting her head to one side.  
'Always,' said Harry with a wink and pulled her into a hug.

_God, he's just so sexy!_  
The group were still sat around the fire, about 45 minutes since Harry and Hermione had left and James was talking rather animatedly about something that Lily wasn't really listening to.

She had a horrible knot in her stomach whenever she looked at him now and was currently trying to avoid his gaze by taking a great interest in the game of chess that Sirius and Remus were playing, though if questioned she wouldn't even be able to tell you who was winning.

Her mind was in turmoil. It was almost like she had two little people in her head battling with each other over whether or not she should take him back. At the moment the person who was saying 'no' was winning but was finding it progressivly more difficult to hold his own. The bottom line was that yes she did love him and she wanted him more than anything else in the world, her body physically ached at the thought of never being able to hold him or touch him ever again, but she was scared. More scared than she had ever been in her entire life. What James had done to her had hurt her so much that she just wanted to curl up in a little ball and die, and she wasn't sure that she could handle going through that again. If she took James back and he broke her heart for a second time, she thought that she simply wouldn't have the strength to carry on and she couldn't risk that.

She loved him so much but she knew she couldn't be with him.

All of a sudden her chest felt a bit tight and she decided, she had to get out of here, she just had to get away from him.  
'I'm hungry,' she said suddenly, 'I'm going to run down to the kitchens and get something to eat.' She got up to leave.  
'Wait,' said James' voice, making her freeze in her position with her back to him and squeezed her eyes shut tight, 'I'll come with you, I'm starved.'  
_No, no, no, he cant come, I'm leaving to get away from him. What is he doing?_  
She just nodded and left the portrait hole with him following her.

She was walking as fast as she could in an attempt to loose him but he was keeping up easily. Neither of them said anything for a long time before suddenly he stopped walking and grabbed her arm.  
'Lily, I know you hate me and I know you'll never forgive me, but I still love you and I always will and so if you ever want to give us another go I'll be waiting.'  
He said this very quickly and it took Lily a moment to process it. She was suddenly very aware that he still had his hand on her arm.  
'James, no.' She was shaking her head but he was still moving his face towards her.  
'I love you, Lily.'  
'No, you don...' But before she could finish her protest his mouth was on hers. Oh how she loved it. With his arms around her she felt so warm and safe but no...  
She pulled away.  
'James, no.' He hung his head without a word.  
_Now, walk away Lily. Go on. Just leave!_  
She couldn't.

Her legs just didn't seem to work.  
Much to James' surprise she grabbed hold of him around the neck and pulled him towards her kissing him deeply and passionately, loving him so much.

'No!' Lily suddenly came to her senses and pulled away from James. She couldn't do this, it was wrong. 'I can't do this again,' she gasped and turned and ran. Muttering curses to her self as she did.  
_How could I be so stupid?_  
'Lily,' James said weakly as she fled around the nearest corner, his fingers moving to his lips where hers had just been.

James didn't move for quite some time. For just a moment there he had been happy again. He had thought that she would take him back. It had been a long time since he had been truely happy but when Lily had kissed him then he forgotton every bad thing that had ever happened to him and that was going on in the world. It was the he opposite of a dementor attach. All he knew was him and her. And that was James' idea of heaven.

But now...it had been ripped away from him again. All he felt was empty, that horrible pain in his heart had returned along with every bad feeling he had had since him and Lily broke up. Right there and then in that corridor, in plain view of everyone that may walk passed, the strong, popular, mighty James Potter...cried.

Lily kept on running until she was outside and then she kept on running until she reached the lake, where she collasped on the floor in tears. It was the very same spot where she had cried after the talent show but she was far too upset to realise that.  
What was she thinking? She had given in in a moment of weakness.  
_Oh God, why do I have to love him so damn much?_  
She then went silent as though waiting for an answer. But none came.

She didn't need one anyway, she knew why she loved him. Because he was perfect, he was everything that she ever wanted. He was clever, good looking, kind, loving, funny, caring, he had a beautiful heart and he looked at her in a way that made her insides melt. But she could never take him back. As much as she loved him, he didn't love her. He couldn't love her and do what he did.  
Oh, but it hurt so much. Just being apart from him was bad enough but having to spend every day around him was even worse. She didn't know how she was going to handle this.

Sirius, Em, Remus and Peter were all sat in the common room just talking idlely when the portrait door slammed open and Lily ran in, she didn't even look at them she just ran ran through the room and up into her dorm room.  
'That was odd,' said Remus, 'wonder what happened.' The others shrugged and turned back to their conversation. It was barely 3 minutes later when the door opened again this time Hermione came in with tears in her eyes followed by Harry who looked equally distraught. Both of them didn't say a word, not even to each other they just headed up to their seperate bedrooms.  
'What on Earth is going on here today?' exclaimed Em, 'has someone died and no-one has told us?' Once again the others simply shrugged and turned back to their conversation but Sirius barely got out his first joke when once again the portrait hole opened and James entered looking like he was in total shock. He was staring vacantly into space and just walked up into his room.  
'Ok,' said Remus, 'We got to find out what's happened. Em, go and find out what's up with Lily and Hermione and me, Padfoot and Wormtail will check with the boys. Meet back here in 20 minutes.'  
Em and Peter nodded at their missions and without another word stood up and went to where they should be.

Sirius however stood still for a moment, 'Did no-one else notice that they didn't bring back any food?' He huffed but shrugged and followed his friends upstairs.

'Ok, someone has got to tell me what the hell is going on, right now!' James and Harry looked up as Sirius entered the room in a very Sirius-like fashion. They were sat on their seperate beds and didn't look like they were speaking to each other before the others entered.  
'Nothing,' they both muttered together. Remus raised his eyebrows at then giving them that dont-you-dare-lie-to-me expression.  
'Ok,' said Harry, not wanting to anger a werewolf, 'There is something but I can't tell you what it is so don't stand there nagging me and going on because we're all allowed our secrets, aren't we Remus?' Harry knew that secrets were a weak spot of Remus' seeing as he had to keep one everyday of his life.  
'Eh...well...yeah, course,' stuttered Remus, 'But what about you Prongs, what happened.'  
James looked up from where he was lay on his bed. 'Lily kissed me.' He said simply. There were lots of 'wows' and 'that's great's' from around the room but James silenced them all, 'and then she ran away in hysterics.'  
'Oh,' said Sirius.  
No-one else said anything, they didn't know what to say.

Meanwhile in the girl's dorm  
'What happened Lils?' asked Em. Hermione was hovering nearby, she had already refused to tell them what was wrong and so Em given up and moved on to Lily.  
'I kissed James.'  
'What?'  
'What?' Hermione had joined the conversation at this news, forgetting her own situation momentarily.  
Lily nodded.  
'So, are you two back together then?' asked Em timidly.  
'And then I ran away in tears.'  
'Oh, Lily, why do you do this to yourself? You obviously love him. Just take him back.' It was Hermione who said this, glad that the conversation had turned from her.  
'Because I don't trust him and as much as I love him it doesn't matter because he doesn't feel the same way.' Both girls opened their mouths to argue but they simultaneously shut them again. There was no way they were going to convince Lily that James did in fact love her because after what he did she no longer believed it and they had tried to make her believe them so many times before that they were starting to lose hope that she would ever believe it.  
'It just hurts so much.' With that tears came to Lily's eyes and she broke down, 'It's just not...

Boy's room

'...fair,' James finished,'Why wont she believe me?' With that James broke down and cried not caring that there was a room full of people who were all now staring at him with scared expressions on their faces. The only thing he cared about was gone.

'You know what guys, I think we should go to Hogsmede for a few hours, everyone seems very tense and I think we could all do with the break.' Everyone looked up when Remus spoke. They were now all in the common room again, they others had had to literally drag the two miserable couples down from their rooms, an hour ago.  
'Sounds like a plan,' said Sirius jumping up.  
'Yeah, it might be fun to get out of here, we'll go and have a drink in the three broomsticks,' said Hermione, her spirits suddenly lifted slightly. Harry, Em and James both nodded in agreement.  
'I don't think I'm gonna go,' said Lily.  
'Oh no you don't,' said Sirius, 'You dont have a choice.'  
'No, I'm not in the mood.'  
Sirius raised an eyebrow and just stepped forward taking hold of Lily around her waist and he proceeded to pick her up over his shoulder and carry her out of the portrait hole, with Lily shrieking for him to put her down.  
By the time they got to the bottom of the stairs that lead up to Honeydukes, Lily had quietened down and was looking fairly bored with her chin rested on her hand as Sirius carried her on.  
He put her down outside of the shop and the group headed towards the Three Broomsticks. It was very cold and by the time they arrived they were welcome for the heat.

'Sirius, that's not physically possible,' insisted Hermione.  
'Oh but it is oh nieve one.' Hermione shook her head, not believing a word he said.  
Remus laughed, 'I'm going to get the drinks in, someone help me?'  
Em said she would and the pair got up and walked to the bar.  
'Seven butterbeers please Rosie,' asked Remus. The pretty girl behind the bar jumped as she heard his voice behind her back.  
'Hey, what's wrong,' asked Em, looking concerned.  
'Oh, I don't know, love, I just have this bad feeling something is up tonight.' Em narrowed her eyebrows. 'Probably nothing though,' continued Rosemerta. 'I'll get your drinks.'  
She moved around behind the bar and collected the drinks they wanted, just then there was a ear-piercing scream from outside and she dropped the bottles. They shattered on the floor at her feet but she barely noticed. There was a look of horror on her face but hers wasn't the only one. Everyone in the pub had an intentical look of fear...

**A/N Hey guys, soz dnt hav time to do review responses bt i wana thank everyone for their support and plz R&R**


	13. There's 4 Sides to Any Story

**A/N Hi ppl, thnx for all the reviews etc for the past few chapters n sorry i havent had chance to do review responses bt I will at the end of this chapter.**

**Anyway, I hope you like this chapter, I think this one mite b my fave tho im nt exactly sure y. Anyway, hope u like it n plz review  
xxxx**

**There's 4 Sides to Every Story**

Remus heard Em gasp on his right as they stepped out of the door of the Three Broomsticks. The whole street looked more like a massive pile of rubble. Most of the buildings on the opposite side of the road had been destroyed and there was bricks and rocks all over the place. There were people everywhere, some screaming, some crying and most bleeding freely. Some unfortunate others were being trambled in the panic.  
'Deatheaters!' Someone screamed as they ran past them and sure enough as Remus looked up he saw the Dark Mark hovering in the sky above him. His stomach dropped with horror, the werewolf instinct inside of him immediately trying to think of the best way of survival.  
However, before he could even wrap him mind around the situation they were in, he felt a shove from behind him as everyone from the pub started to run outside, in a blind panic. Unfortunately for Remus and Em, however, they were in the doorway and therefore in the way. Luckily, Remus managed to grab hold of Em's hand seconds before they were pushed into the stampede of people running. They were all going madly in what appeared to be one direction making it fairly definate in both Em and Remus; minds that there was something to be running away from.  
They had no choice but run the same way as the people, attempting to go back and find the others would be suicide, they just hoped they'd managed to stay together.

They were pushed and shoved roughly as complete strangers barged passed them, caring about nothing but their own safety as they ran desperately for their lives. Remus, however much his panic and desperation rose never once released Em's hand, knowing that if he did he would probably never find her again.

Finally the crowd started to thin out as people were running frantically in all directions. Em still held Remus' hand tight, so tight she was hurting him slightly but he didn't want to say anything.

Then they spotted the deatheaters.

They were walking calmly through the crowds, cursing people at random and pushing those in their way out of it. Just then one deatheater shoved a dark haired woman rather violently so that she fell to the ground with a deep-looking cut on her head.  
'We have to help her,' said Em and Remus nodded, pulling out his wand. The pair fought their way through the crowds towards the girl. Remus knelt down and started to perform the healing charm that they had been taught not so long ago, thanking God for Professor Flitwick.  
He looked around and saw Em kneeling next to a boy, with blonde hair and a gash down his cheek, performing the same spell. He just nodded to himself, thinking how brave she was before returning to his task.  
The girl he was helping opened her eyes and looked at him thankfully. She opened and closed her mouth several times in an attempt to express her gratitude but, seeing she was failing to find the words, Remus just smiled and nodded before helping her to her feet. Seeing that she was ok, he moved on to the next injured person he saw.

Lily screamed as someone shoved her from behind and she fell forward, feeling a sudden pain in both her hands as they hit the floor. She was stuck in the middle of the stampede of people and couldn't get up because they were everywhere, all just caring about getting the hell away from where they were, paying no attention to the fallen 17 year old underneather their feets. So there was Lily curled up in a ball as people ran past her, standing on her hands and feet as though she wasn't there.  
Just then she felt strong hands move around her waist and lift her up off the ground. The body kept hold of her and pulled her out of the crowd and behind a bush by the side of the road.  
She opened her eyes to see who her saviour was and was only slightly surprised to see the extremely concerned eyes of...  
'James?'  
'Lily, are you ok?' he asked with a worried expression on his face.  
She nodded that she was but when she saw the look of doubt in his eyes she said,  
'Yeah, I'm fine, thanks,' with some more confidence in her voice and he seemed satisfied. 'You saved me?' She asked bewildered.  
'Of course I did, Lily, I just saw you there on the floor with all those people and my only thought was that I had to get you out of there. I couldn't stand the idea of you getting hurt like that,' he looked down at his hands, 'especially after I've already hurt you so much already.' She gazed up into his dark eyes and saw nothing but sincerity and love.  
And then she did the stupidest thing she had done since she kissed him that afternoon...she kissed him that night.

The kiss was deep and passionate and for a mere moment both teenagers forgot that there was a battle going on around them, they forgot that they were no longer together, they forgot everything that had happened over the past few months and they just kissed. They soaked up every ouch of each other that they could, and acted so desperately, completely dying at the thought that they had been missing out on this for so long.  
When Lily pulled back James' eyes were wide with amazement, 'Lil?'  
Then he saw her eyes change and he knew what she was thinking. He knew that that oh so familiar feeling of regret overwhelmed her once again and a look of panic came over her face before she stood up and ran out of their hiding place, not hearing James' cries of no, straight into the arms of...  
'Voldemort,' she gasped, starting to back away, out of the corner of her eye she saw James run forward from behind the bush but before he had time to do anything Voldemort muttered something under his breath and James gasped in horror as he saw a brilliant blue light, laced with black erupt from the end of his wand and hit Lily straight in the chest. She crumpled to the ground immediately.  
'NOOOOOOOOOOOO!' screamed James and ran forward as Voldemort turned towards him with his wand out. However, then the oddest thing happened. Voldemort paused and looked up as though he had heard something.

He whispered one word to himself, 'HIM,' and then disapperated immediately leaving James to rush over to Lily with tears in his eyes.  
She had a pulse, she was alive. He let out an involuntary sigh of relief and the breath he hadn't realised he was holding and picked her up in his arms. He started running forward not knowing where he was going until he spotted Sirius stood in the middle of the road with his wand in his hand and a look of shock on his face.  
'Sirius!'

'Harry, this is it, after everything that has happened we are actually discovering what Voldemort was like when he first came to power.' Harry and Hermione were currently weaving in and out of the people running frantically around in all directions through Hogsmede. He had grasped her hand tightly as they were pushed out of the pub and he hadn't let go since and had no intention of doing so any time soon. He had reached out to grab his mother's hand also, but they had been pulled apart by the crowds and he hadn't seen any of his friends since.  
Harry stopped suddenly, 'Ok, Herm, you need to calm down. We've been through a Voldemort attack before. Remember last year when he attacked us at the Quidditch World Cup, we made it through that and we'll make it through this.' The words were coming out of Harry's mouth but he knew that that wasn't really what was bothering her. He knew that it was because the last time she had come face-to-face with 'Him' Ron had been killed and it was her greatest fear to lose him as well.  
Hermione nodded, 'I know, I just don't want to lose you too. I love you too much.' She said the last part timidly.  
'You won't, I promise, but we have to stop this now.' Hermione knew what he was going to do but it didn't make her like it anymore.  
Harry turned away from her pulling out his wand and shouted, 'VOLDEMORT! I KNOW YOU CAN HEAR ME EVEN THOUGH YOU WON'T KNOW WHY. I KNOW YOU WANT TO KILL ME EVEN THOUGH YOU DON'T KNOW WHO I AM YET. SO GET YOUR ARSE OVER HERE NOW AND FIGHT A WORTHY OPPONANT!' Harry knew that the scar on his forehead still held the connection between him and Voldemort even if technically he hadn't given him it yet and he hoped that after all the visions and the dreams that Voldemort had used to communicate with him, he would be able to do the same thing.

Almost straight away he got an answer to his question as there was a loud POP! and his enemy was standing in front of him with a look of curiosity and anger on his face.  
'You boy!' he said, 'Who are you?'  
'The person who is going to kill you,' said Harry and immediately started shooting spells at him.  
_'STUPEFY!'_ he shouted. He had to be careful that he didn't say a spell at the same time as the man in front of him or it would just be a repeat performance of the end of Harry's forth year.  
The spell hit Voldemort's left arm and for a second it dazed him.

Unfortunately for Harry and the rest of the world, however, he managed to fight though the charm and shouted _'Crucio!' _Harry tried to dodge but failed before he bent over in pain. He felt a cut appear on his right cheek and thought briefly for a second _Great another scar._ At this thought Harry actually laughed to himself despite the pain. Then however it stopped just as quickly as it had started. He looked up and saw Voldemort's robes on fire and Hermione pointing her wand at him.  
'You, my boy, are something special and we shall meet again,' came Voldemort's harsh voice as he extinguished his robes.  
'You have no idea,' said Harry as his nemisis disapperated in front of him. As he did so did all of his Deatheaters and all that were left were just people lying all over the place in pain and hysterics.  
'We have to find the others,' said Hermione, starting to walk off.  
'Hey,' said Harry and she turned and looked back to him, 'Thanks.' They both smiled and in that instance they both remembered their kiss.

Sirius ran for about five minutes after leaving the Three Broomsticks before realising with a jolt in his stomach that he was alone. He had managed to lose all of his friends.  
He stood in the middle of the mass of people for a moment looking around in desperation. No-one. But wait!  
With a start he thought he saw someone he recognised.  
_No, it couldn't be, not even he is that stupid._  
There with the hood up on his deathaters cloak was, 'Reg? What the fuck?'  
The deatheater turned around and was face-to-face with his brother. 'What the hell are you doing, Regulus?' stuttered Sirius in shock.  
Sirius watched the colour drain out of his brother's cheeks but as quickly as it disappeared, it reappeared, 'Mind your own buisiness,' Reg snapped, 'This has nothing to do with you. Now leave me alone to do what I have to do.' He started to walk away but was stopped with a hand on his arm.  
'Of course, it has something to do with me. I'm your brother.'  
'You're not my brother,' he snapped back suddenly, pushing Sirius' hand off his arm as though it was dirty. 'You stay the hell away from me and let me lead my own life.' With that he turned and left before he could be stopped.  
His brother was left staring into space with a look of shock on his face until he was snapped out of it by someone calling his name.  
'Sirius!' He whipped around and saw James carrying Lily in his arms.  
'Prongs! What happened?'  
'V...V...Voldemort,' stuttered James, close to tears, 'I don't know what happened, it was all to fast. Oh, it's all my fault.'  
Sirius was just about to reply and try to console his friend, telling him that it was probably NOT his fault but there was a voice suddenly.  
'Hey, she looks hurt, there's some people over there healing people, you should go to them.' After giving them the message the girl who said it ran off towards a friend of hers she'd just spotted.  
The two boys nodded to each other and headed towards the direction she'd pointed to. Both of their hearts leapt with relief when they spotted...  
'Em!'  
'Remus!'  
Their two friends (and in Sirius' case, his girlfriend) were on their hands and knees with their wands out and a line of people all with injuries. The looked hot and sweaty as they were trying to heal as many people as possible as quickly as possible.  
Em looked up and shrieked her boyfriend's name before running forward and giving him a hug telling him how scared she was.  
Tears came to her eyes when she spotted Lily but she had no idea what was wrong with her. It was simply as though she was just asleep and until they knew otherwise Em didn't want to risk any spells on her.

Five minutes later, as Em was helping a girl with a cut down her right arm and Sirius was owling Dumbledore telling him what had happened, Harry and Hermione turned up, Harry with a large gash down his cheek.

It was barely three minutes later when Dumbledore appeared with Madame Pomfrey holding a quill (portkey). She immediately stepped forward gathering the attention of the group of friends.  
'Ok, you boy, there,' she said pointing to Harry, 'and you Mr, Lupin and Miss Hawkins (Em by the way if you don't remember). I want you to all follow me with your wands.' Just then Sirius and Hermione came back from the post office where they had been owling for some healers from St. Mungo's. 'You, Mr. Black and Miss Granger, I want you to come with me also.' She set off leading the group, barking orders and organising people into groups depending on how critical they were.  
After watching her snap into action Dumbledore walked over to James who was kneeling on the floor weeping silently, with an unconcious Lily's head on his knee.  
'It was all my fault,' he wept, 'She ran out because of me.'  
Dumbledore looked down at the boy who suddenly looked so small in comparison to just yesterday. 'Tell, me what happened James.'  
James looked up as if suddenly realising that there was someone else there. He was quiet for a minute before launching into a story about what happened.

After he finished Dumbledore was quite silent, there were several thoughts running through his head. The main one was the fact that James had said it was a blue light with black streaks in it that had appeared from the end of Voldemort's wand. He couldn't think of any spell that could have been used which would create that. And the even more worrying matter was that if they didn't know what the spell was, they wouldn't know how to reverse it...

**A/N Review Response**

**Phoenix Tears - **_thnk u very much for your review, it made me smile. Im really plzd u like my story n I hope u continue to read. xxx_

**Pandas Rule the World (hehe love that name) - **_I realise that they dnt seem that upset over Ron but they both have to keep up a show in front of the others so that they dont get suspicious. Also, over Xmas, Harry was far too happy at actually finally getting to spend a Xmas with his parents (something which he dont remember ever getting to do before) and thats all he could really focus on. Hermione really did struggle over Xmas cos she missed both Ron and her parents._

_Sorry I havent been very gud with making them upset so far bt il try n put some extra scenes in later on to show their sadness._

_Finally, thnx for the comment, I appreciate the constructive criticism._

**SpicySugar - **_lol, sorry bout all the suspence n cliffy's bt Im really starting to love doing it. It makes me feel dead evil. hehe. I just did another one there but at least I know that it keeps you reading :)_

**Gaul 1 - **_thnx for the reviews n plz keep reviewing._

_thnx guys R&R_


	14. Sinking

**A/N I have to say ppl, im a bit upset. The hit counter says that i recieved 136 hits for that last chapter yet only 3 people reviewed. Now that seems a bit wrong to me and I would really appreciate if more ppl wud review, id love to hear wot u think.**

**Just want to thank my long-term reviewers gaul1, SpicySugar, Pandas Rule to World andPhoenix Tears. I give u cookies gives cookies**

Sinking

That night there wasn't one person in Hogwarts School of Wicthcraft and Wizardry who had actually slept. Everyone had known about the attack on Hogsmeade because Dumbledore had received the owl from Sirius during dinner and he had jumped up straight away, calling for Madame Pomfrey. A Slytherin third year had then stolen the letter, so naturally, the whole school knew.  
Students and teachers alike were huddled in groups all around Hogwarts talking quickly in quiet whispers. There was a rumor that a group of Gryfindor seventh years had been in Hogsmeade at the time of the attack and Dumbledore had been viewed carrying a figure wrapped in blackets into the hospital wing followed closely by Madame Pomfrey and several students.  
The students had then been removed from the hospital wing with great protests just 20 minutes later and had then made their way into the Gryfindor boys' dormitory and locked the door. Not even the girls in the group left that room that night.

By 7 o clock the next morning Remus, Em, Harry, Hermione and Sirius were all in the hospital wing sat by Lily's bed. They had only left the night before because they had been made to and they had been stood outside of the hospital wing's door since 5:30 that morning.  
They were all amazed by Lily's appearance. Amazed, that is, of how normal it was. She merely looked like she was asleep and, according to Madame Pomfrey, she was.  
The nurse had been up all night doing various tests, using a number of potions and spells to try and discover what was wrong with the fiery red-head and she had no idea. There was no physical damage to her and her brain showed no sign of being anything but normal. As far as she could work out Lily was under some kind of sleeping spell. The problem was, however, that that could only be performed using a potion and according to Mr. Potter she had been hit with a spell.  
This is what Madame Pomfrey was explaining to the group of students that currently sat around Lily's bed. They were all sat in silent wonderment, that was until she mentioned 'Mr. Potter'.  
At the sound of his name Em looked up. 'Where is James?'  
'Oh,' said Sirius, 'He, er, didn't wanna come.'  
As he said this everyone looked confused. With a look on their faces which all asked the same question.  
Why?

'Well he said he had some work he wanted to finish,' continued Sirius.  
'Do you believe him?' asked Hermione knowing that of everyone Sirius knew James the best.  
'No way!' exclaimed the boy, loudly, 'There's definately more to it.'  
After he said this everyone went quiet.

'So,' said Remus changing the subject, 'does Dumbledore have any idea how to reverse this?'  
'No, I talked to him last night and he said he'd never seen anything like this before,' said Em, 'he's stumped, so is Madame P.'  
They all probably would have laughed at Em's Madame P. comment but none of them felt even slightly like laughing. They all looked down at the limp, lifeless figure of their friend (and in one case mother) with a look of great sorrow on their faces, each hoping that there would be a way to revive her but each also knowing that if Dumbledore didn't know then they were going to have some trouble finding it.

That night the group left the hospital wing at 10 when Madame Pomfrey insisted they left, Hermione and Remus being the only ones to have left at all and that was to retrieve some food from the kitchens. There had been no appearance from James all day.

They all left in silence, heading towards the common room, even though no-one had actually said it they all knew where they were going. When they reached the portrait hole, however, Harry muttered something about the library and left. They rest of the group looked at Hermione questionally who nodded and turned to follow him.  
When she reach the library she saw Harry sat alone at a small table in the furthest back corner, just staring into space.  
'She'll be ok, you know?' Hermione said from behind him. Harry didn't look around but she knew he was listening, 'You know that she must come out of this or you would never have been born.'  
Harry sighed, 'But what if us being here has changed too much? What if _we_ have changed too much? She might never wake up and I might never be born. Her and dad aren't even together here. What if none of this was ever meant to happen but it has because of us?'  
Hermione closed her eyes. She had no response to this because secretly it was exactly what she herself had been worrying about, she had just hoped that he hadn't thought it too. So she moved into the chair next to Harry and simply pulled him into a hug with no intention of letting go anytime soon.  
He was eternally grateful for this. He didn't want to talk to people and he didn't want anyone telling him it would be ok or asking how he was, he just wanted to be held and he loved Hermione so much in that moment for just knowing that.

'Hey James, where were you today?' asked Sirius as he and Remus entered the boys' dormitory, where their friend was currently sat on him bed staring into space. He looked up when Sirius spoke.  
'Erm...I was busy. Homework and stuff, you know.'  
'But, I'm in all your classes and we've hardly got any work at all. Even if we did you wouldn't do it,' Sirius chuckled as he said this, trying desperately to lighten the mood.  
'Listen Sirius, I'm sorry if I want to actually spend some time on my schoolwork, that's not a crime is it? We do have NEWTs coming up you know!' James was now off his bed and standing facing Sirius with a look of anger on his face.  
'Wow Prongs, chill.'  
James flung his hands up in the air and stormed past Remus and out of the room.  
Sirius slowing pivoted around to face his friend in the doorway with a look of confusion on his face.  
'What's up with him, Moony?'  
'He blames himself,' he said simply and Sirius couldn't help thinking how wise for his age his friend really was.  
'Should we go after him, you think?'  
Remus thought for a second then shook his head, 'Best let him have some alone time.'

After James left his friends in their dormitory he left the common room and proceeded to walk through the school with no particular destination. It wasnt until he reached the statue of the one-eyed witch that he made a decision. He felt in his pocket to check he had some money and muttered the password that would open the passage to Hogsmede.

If you asked James how he made it through Honeydukes unnoticed he wouldn't be able to tell you. He was walking in such a daze with so many thoughts running through his head that it was a surprise even to him when he discovered that he was outside of the Three Broomsticks.  
He entered the pub and after ordering himself a firewhiskey at the bar (butterbeer just wasnt going to cut it today) (A/N I realise he is underage bt he's only a year underage in England and the barperson will assume he'd be at school if he wasn't 18) he found himself a table at the back of the pub out of the way.  
James noticed with despair that all the songs that were playing seemed to be hugely depressing and so wasnt helping his mood.

_In one single moment your whole life can turn around, _

_I stand there for a minute staring straight into the ground.  
Looking to the left slightly then looking back down,_

_the world feels like its caved in, proper sorry frown.  
Please let me show you how we could only just be for us, _

_I can change and I can grow or we can adjust. _

_The wicked thing about us is we always have trust.  
We can even have an open relationship if we must. _

_  
I look at her, she stares almost straight back at me but her eyes glaze over like shes looking straight through me.  
Then her eyes must have closed for what seems an eternity, when they opened up shes lookin down at her feet. _

Chorus

Dry your eyes mate,

_I know it's hard to take but her mind has been made up.  
There's plenty more fish in the sea.  
Dry your eyes mate, _

_I know you want to make her see how much this pain hurts, _

_but you've got to walk away now, _

_its over._

It was hard to believe that two days ago his greatest worry was that Lily wouldn't take him back. Now he would give anything, even have it so that he could never set eyes on her again, if she would just wake up. He missed her so much and would do anything to have her back.

'Woah! That's not good,' said Sirius when he saw James slumped over the table in the Three Broomsticks. Him and Remus had given James a few hours by himself and then decided to go look for him, however after seeing that he wasn't on the Marauders Map they assumed he had come to Hogsmede and they were right.  
'As always Padfoot, you are indeed the king of stating the obvious,' replied Remus. Sirius shrugged and motioned to follow him over to his unfortunate friend who was currently passed out on the table.  
'Come on Prongs, time to get up.' James looked up as if he wasn't sure who it was.  
'Moony?'  
'Yeah, it's me, we gotta get you back to Hogwarts before they alert the authorities.' While he said this he was trying to put his hand under James' arm and lift him up, with Sirius on his other side.  
The pair managed to half carry/half drag their friend out of the pub and into the fresh air outside before James slipped out of their grasp and slumped onto the floor crying.  
'Dude, how much have you drank?' asked Sirius.  
'Alot, didn't you see all the bottles on his table?' Remus replied and Sirius nodded in reply, he was attempting to pull his mate back up from the ground but after failing he gave up and just sat down next to him. Remus did the same.  
'She's gonna be alright, you know, Prongs,' said Remus, trying to sound as understanding as possible.  
'But what if she'd not?' wailed James, uncontrollably, 'What if she dies and it's all my fault?'  
Remus hung his head not really knowing what to say. He knew that he could tell James a million times that it wasn't indeed his fault but he wouldn't believe him. Surprisingly for both of them it was Sirius who came through with help.  
'Look Prongs, I know that no matter how many times we say it's not your fault you're still not going to believe us but,' Remus was amazed that Sirius was actually saying exactly what he was thinking, 'James, sitting here and dwelling on it isn't helping, you have to pull yourself together for Lily's sake and come back to the castle and at least help us find a way to wake her up. You haven't even been to see her.'  
James wiped some tears off his face with the back of his hand.  
'I can't go and see her. I just can't.'  
'Ok then don't,' piped up Remus, 'But just come back with us now. We'll get some sleep tonight and go straight to the library in the morning and find a way to bring her back. Hermione is amazing in that place, and we will find something.'  
James nodded and struggled to his feet, wavered and Remus and Sirius caught him before escorting him back to Hogwarts.

The next day all James felt that he had gained from his little drinking session was a really bad headache. He woke up that morning and a pack of horses would have failed to pull him out of bed. Unfortunately for him, Remus and Sirius were better than a pack of horses and had him up and in the Great Hall for breakfast. That, however, didn't last long as the sight of food made James need to throw up so he quickly exited the hall.  
James hadn't even realised that they were already in the Easter holidays and he seemed to have forgotton that they had their NEWTs in a mere month, fortunately for him he was the type of person who didn't need to revise. The others however did.  
The group had taken to taking their books to Lily's bedside and spending the day revising there. Sirius had moaned that they should be able to get out of them because of what was happening but Remus warned them that Lily would kill them all if she woke up to discover they'd all failed their exams because of her.

James still hadn't been to visit Lily. He just couldn't bring himself to do it. One night he even managed to walk down to the Hospital Wing but he couldn't seem to make his legs walk through the door.  
His friends were all really worried about him and all of them on several different occasions had tried to talk him into going to see Lily. They had all failed. There was simply nothing they could do short of putting him under the imperius curse and making him go but as Hermione pointed out that probably wasn't allowed.

A week later there was still no recovery from Lily. Fortunately she wasn't getting worse but Madame Pomfrey had tried everything she could think of to wake her up and had failed. One day, after Lily had been asleep for 6 days the group entered the Hospital Wing to discover that there were four healers around Lily's bed all muttering numerous spells and mixing potions, unfortunately by the time they left they were no more successful.  
The suggestion had arisen that Lily should be moved to St. Mungo's but after seeing the look of horror on her friends face's Dumbledore convinced the healers that it would make no difference as she would still be just asleep there as she would be here.

**A/N Ok guys, that chapter was a bit uneventful but I jus wanted to show the desperation that James was feeling**

**Plz R&R**


	15. Love Will Keep Us Together

**A/N Ok ppl, really really sorry its taken me so long to post this time but I've been away last week and been really busy but here it is now and I hope you like it. I'm not completely convinced I'm happy with this chapter, it seems a bit cheesy but I needed this to happen for the story to continue.**

**Also, only one chapter left after this one! AWWW! (i know you're all devestated) :) however, I'm considering writing a, sort of, sequel to this FF about how the world has changed when they finally do get home. I dont know any details yet but I quite fancy making it so that Harry and Hermione have unintentionally changed too much in the past and the future is different.**

**However, if I did thisI am going to need a very good beta who is willing to give me regular kicks up the arse to continue with the story and keep writing as well as giving me their honest opinion on whats good and whats crap. So if anyone is interested could you stick it in a review along with ur email address (preferably a MSN address so that we can talk on messenger tho if you dont have it thats ok) and I would like to get started asap and try and get a fair bit done before I go back to skool in september.**

**Anyway, Ive rambled on enough now, so enjoy!**

Love Will Keep Us Together

James still hadn't been to visit Lily, a week later. His 'walking to the door and not being able to go through' thing was becoming almost daily now but there was still no luck.  
He started to distance himself from his friends, speaking only to them when it was unavoidable and keeping these conversations to the minimum. They were trying to be supportive, he knew that, but they just didn't understand how he felt. How could they? It was nobody's fault but his so no-one else could know the knawing sense of guilt that was eating away at his stomach.

Another thing was that he was barely sleeping and when he did it was through the day so that he would have to see people as little as possible.

James was lay awake in bed one night, as he did so often now, listening to Sirius' snores when he decided that if he stayed there any longer he was going to go insane, so he picked up a book off the table beside his bed and headed down to the common room.  
He let out a sigh of relief as he entered the room to find it empty, which shouldn't really have been a surprise seeing as it was 2 in the morning. He slumped into the armchair in front of the fire, which was now only really embers, and closed his eyes in a desperate attempt to hold back the tears. It failed.  
_Well at least no-one's here._ James thought before he gave in a broke into desperate sobs.  
Of course, he was wrong. Stood watching his every move on the boys staircase was a boy who was feeling every bit what James was feeling and who sat down on the step before removing his glasses to wipe away a tear.

Harry sat there for a long time watching his father but he couldn't build up the courage to actually go down those last few steps and talk to him, comfort him. So he just sat there and watched.  
Every so often James mumbled something to himself that Harry couldn't hear properly but from the odd word he could understand it seemed that his dad was trying to convince himself to go and visit Lily.  
'Oh this is stupid,' James said to himself suddenly fairly soundly. And with that he stood up and headed for the portrait hole. Without hesitation Harry followed but a safe distance behind so that James wouldn't realise he was there.  
The truth is that Harry probably could have made as much noise as he wanted and James wouldn't have noticed because he was in a deep trance, thinking about what he was doing. It was at least 3 in the morning and he was definately breaking some rules by being out of bed, not that rule breaking bothered him, what bothered him what that he seemed to not even be trying to conceal himself. Back in the common room he had contemplated going up to his room and getting his invisibility cloak but he decided that if he wasted even a second he would chicken out and not do it at all.  
Rather abruptly, and to James' surprise he had actually reached the hospital wing. He stood looking at the door, for a second. This is the place he had been in so many times before but he had never been able to go a step further.  
Then he took a deep breath and pushed on the door.  
Harry stood around the corner, and watched his father go in the hospital wing, with a smile. He had finally done it and Harry was proud of him.

At that time of the night (or more accurately morning) the hospital wing was empty apart from patients and there was only Lily and a boy who had been injured during the Ravenclaw-Slytherin quidditch match but he was asleep. Madame Promfrey had a room that came off the hospital wing where she slept in case any of her patients needed her during the night but James knew that as long as he was quiet she wouldn't hear him.  
He moved towards her bed and straight away was amazed by how normal she looked. She didn't look ill or injured at all (unlike the boy in the other bed who currently had part of a broomstick sticking out of his arm), she merely looked asleep. This settled James' mind a bit as he had been expecting her to look horrible and he didn't want to think that he was the reason she looked like that but she didn't, she just looked peaceful.

James sat down on the chair that was by her bed and he took her hand.  
'Lily, I'm so sorry.' James whispered this so that he barely heard himself but he thought that if Lily could hear him it wouldn't matter the volume he was speaking at. 'I'm sorry that I put you in here, I'm sorry I haven't been to see you until now, I just couldn't, it was too hard, I felt so guity and, I guess, I was in denile. I thought that if I didn't see you then you weren't really here now, lay like this.' James took a deep breath and felt the first tear roll down his right cheek. He closed his eyes and buried his face in the bed beside Lily's hand.  
'Lily, I'm also sorry about everything that happened before this. I know I've said it before but I desperately want you, need you to believe me and forgive me. But now,' James stopped talking, feeling extremely overwhelmed. 'Now, I don't care if you want to take me back. I don't care about anything except you waking up and being ok again, I swear that if you wake up now I will never ever pressure you into being with me ever again.' James paused again to wipe his eyes with his left hand, his right was still tightly gripping Lily's. 'Lil, I love you.'

_Is that a voice?  
Yes, it is! but who?  
James! It's James, he's here, with me.  
I have to talk to him tell him I'm here too. Is he crying? Over me? Really?  
James! I can hear you, please keep talking to me, I'm here.  
No, he can't hear me. I wish I could see him, all I can see is black. I know he's close but he's still too far away to reach.  
Argh! I just wanna scream to him, why can't he hear me, I can hear him. _

**Lily, I'm so sorry, I'm sorry that I put you in here**

_What? He blames himself? How can he do that. Oh why can't I just tell him that it wasn't him and that he has to stop feeling guilty. _

**If you wake up now I will never ever pressure you into being with me ever again**

_Thats what he's worrying about? Thats the last thing he should be thinking about, he has his NEWTs soon. _

**Lily, I love you**

Wow! What's Happening?

_James, I can hear you, please hear me! Don't ever leave me again!_

_James!_

_James!_

'James?'  
His head shot up, he had been sat with his head in his arms until he heard the voice that he had been hoping and praying he would hear for the last month.  
'Lily!' There she was, her eyes were still closed but she was moving her head as though trying to shake herself back to consiousness. The thought momentarily passed through James' head in which he wondered how she knew he was there if she hadn't yet opened her eyes but he soon forgot it as he pulled on her hand and tried to urge her awake.  
'Lily, thank God, open your eyes, I'm here, don't worry everything is gonna be ok now.' He pulled her into a hug as her beautiful green eyes fluttered open.  
He was now crying again into her shoulder, this time with pure happiness and relief.  
'James.' He pulled away from her but held his hands on her upper arms as though he couldn't bare to let her go again.  
'Lily, I'm so sorry,' he sobbed.  
'James, I...'  
But he had to go on and finish what he was about to say, 'Lil, I love you so much and I am sorry for everything.'  
She opened her mouth to reply but stopped and turned as they heard a voice behind them.  
'Oh my God!'  
It was Harry, stood with his mouth hanging open my the door. Neither Lily nor James had time to even wonder what he was doing in the hospital wing at four in the morning but it was James who spoke first.  
'Harry, go get Madame Pomfrey now!'  
Harry just nodded at his father's command and turned and ran towards where the nurses's room was.

He came back just minutes later followed by a rather frazzled looking Madame Pomfrey wearing her pink dressing gown and a hair net.  
'Oh my, what on earth did you boys do?'  
James stuttered something out about not knowing and not really doing anything but she had already stopped listening and was checking Lily's pulse rate and blood pressure.  
After several minutes she stopped and looked around at the three confused children and said, 'Well, I don't know what happened but Miss Evans appears to be perfectly healthy.' There were massive grins all around but Madame Pomfrey continued talking. 'Now, I want you two boys to go and fetch Professor Dumbledore immediately, hopefully he'll have and explanation.' They nodded and left, the smiles never leaving their faces.

'Ahhh Miss Evans, it's good to see you're back with us.' Professor Dumbledore had been working in his office (apparently he never actually sleeps) when the two frantic boys had burst him telling him in excited voices that Lily was awake and he was immediately up and out of his office on his way to the hospital wing.  
Lily smiled at him as he entered, 'Thanks Sir, and as much as I like being not in a coma I was wondering if you could tell me why.'  
The other three (James, Harry and Madame Pomfrey) were all stood around Lily's bed and were listening intently to his reply.  
'Well, I do believe I have an idea but I would like you to tell me exactly what had happened first.'  
So between her and James they managed to get an exact version told of what had happened. James had been amazed when he found out that she had been able to hear him talking to her while she was unconcious.

After they had finished Professor Dumbledore nodded. 'One more question Mr Potter, was tonight the first time you have been to visit Miss Evans since she was admitted?'  
James blushed slightly, feeling guilt that he had not come to see her sooner but nodded.  
'Well then, I know what made Miss Evans wake up,' continued Dumbledore, 'It was love.'  
Simultaneously the mouths of the four other people in the room dropped open and there was a silence for several seconds. Seeing they were confused the headmaster continued, 'Let me explain. You see to cast a spell as powerful and vindictive as the one Voldemort cast on you Miss Evans takes a great deal of hatred and, of course, the counterbalance of hate is...love. Now, when Mr Potter here came to your side and confessed his feelings for you it was true enough and powerful enough of a feeling to break Voldemort's curse.'  
He finished and looked around the room. Harry was staring at his parents in amazement with a slight smile on his face, and couldn't help but think that Dumbledore really was right when he had been telling him for all these years about the power he held against Voldemort being love. This was not the first time that the love of one of his parents had saved a life, namely his.

Madame Pomfrey was surveying the scene with an uncharacteristic grin on her face and James was looking longingly at Lily, who was staring back with tears in her eyes.  
'But, I thought you didn't love me,' was all she managed to say after several minutes, her voice croaky and choked.

James moved forwards and sat on the bed next to her.  
'Lil, I always loved you, from the moment I saw you, I kept telling you that but you wouldn't believe me after what I did.' He hung his head, tearing his eyes away from hers but she smiled, placing her fingertips under his chin moving his head up so he was looking at her again.  
'I love you too.'

**A/N Can I just give a special mention to JerseyPike for your review and I want to thank you for your honesty and say that I appreciate you comments. Also, I now feel incredibly stupid for not realising that a girl in the 70s was singing Britney Spears at the talent show. lol, thnx alot**


	16. Goodbye! FINI!

**A/N OOOOHH THIS IS THE END! im so sad but NEVER FEAR im currently working on a sequel to this story with my wonderful new beta SpicySugar and I hope to have the first chapter posted within the next few months so I hope u all keep checking my space and give it a look when its up.**

**Thank you to all of my wonderful readers and those who have been reading this from the beginning, I hope u like the ending and dont think its crap.**

**Anyway, for the last time...ENJOY!**

Goodbye!

Lily left the hospital wing before dinner the next day, it appeared that she was completely fine now, as though she had simply woken up from a deep sleep which, as Hermione pointed out, was actually true.  
James went down to collect her from the hospital at around four and grinned to see her sat on her bed, fully dressed, eagerly awaiting him even though he was half an hour early.  
'Well, I have been in this room for weeks on end, I can't wait to get out,' was all she said when he commented on it. He smiled and took her hand, leading her away from what had been her prison for the past month.  
They talked generally as they headed to the common room, their hands linked, the smiles never leaving their faces.  
James felt as though he was in heaven. He thought he had literally been in hell since he had watched as Lily was hit by that curse and now that she was awake again he had everything he'd ever wanted though never imagined he would get.  
He paused outside the portrait hole and leant down and kissed her. 'You have no idea how amazing it feels to be able to just do that whenever I want to again.' She gazed up at his face and felt a pang of love in her stomach.  
'Hey,' she said, 'Thanks for saving my life.' He pulled her into a tight hug, feeling as though he never wanted to let her go, before muttering the password and manuvering Lily into the common room.  
'SURPRISE!' The common room was filled with balloons and banners reading 'Welcome back Lily!' and 'Glad you're not dead!' (that one was definately Sirius' doing, Lily thought). All of the Gryfindors were there and also a few Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs. However, the original shout of 'surprise' was covered up by the commontion caused by Sirius falling off the table he was standing on.

'Sirius, no!' screamed Em, frantically yet firmly, wagging her finger at him and wearing a look that mirrored McGonagall.  
'Awwww,' he pouted, 'Why not?'  
'Because if you dive headfirst off the astronomy tower you will DIE!'  
'Fine,' muttered Sirius and sat back down in a huff, glaring sidewards at his girlfriend, in fake anger. She grinned a triumphant grin and wrapped her arms around his neck tightly.  
The group were sat in front of the fire in the Gryfindor common room, with Lily's welcome back party going on wildly around them.

They had been sat talking casually for about an hour now, anyone who didn't know them and saw would never have guessed that just the day before they had all been fearing for the life of one of their best friends. They were laughing and joking in a way that they hadn't done in what seemed like ages.

The ongoing threat of the continuous rise of Voldemort had been weighing alot on the minds of everyone for the past year and the extra stress that this particular group of friends had experienced in the last month had brought everyone down to an all time low. It seemed, however, that a party and the relief of Lily not being dead was just enough to wipe Voldemort from their minds at last, and in that moment they were just a group of normal teenagers who weren't living with the threat of impending doom over their heads.

Even, Lily was completely at ease in the moment. She was laughing and smiling with everyone else and felt perfectly comfortable lying in her boyfriend's arms with him stroking her hair. She felt like their time apart had never even happened. The smile hadn't left her face since she had entered the common room with him two hours earlier and he had an identical grin on his.  
All of their friends were immensly pleased they were back together and so their good mood had spread around the group.

Two of them, however, happy as they were, was staying fairly quiet.  
Harry and Hermione had been exchanging glances all night. Along with the shy smiles that always appear when a couple discovers that they like each other.

They hadn't mentioned the kiss they had shared all those weeks ago. Harry had been understandably distracted by the condition of his mother and Hermione realised that he needed her to play the role of best friend rather than girlfriend so had thought it inappropriate to bring it up. They had merely been pretending it hadn't happened though now Lily was better the pentup feeling were threatening to come out.  
The others, of course, had noticed this though they hadn't said anything they all kept giving each other knowing looks, and so didn't say anything when the pair excused themselves early and disappeared into the boys dormitory.

Boy's Dorm  
'Erm...Harry?'  
He looked up quickly from the quill he had been fiddling with distractedly. 'Yes, Hermione?'  
'I think we need to talk.'  
Harry nodded in agreement and placed the quill on his bedside cabinet but he found that he didn't know what to say and the pair lapsed into silence and it was Hermione who broke it several minutes later.  
'About that kiss before..'  
'Yeah?' Harry could feel his hands begin to shake a shoved them into his lap, hoping she wouldn't notice how nervous he was.  
'Well, I don't want to pretend it didn't happen.'  
Harry nodded, eagerly, 'What do you want to do then?'  
Hermione took a deep breath as if trying to build up some courage, _Come on Hermione, you're a Gryfindor for Merlin's sake. Just say it. _'I want to do it again.'  
There was a cheeky yet nervous grin on her face as the words escaped her lips, though it disappeared immediately as he leaned forward and their lips touched...

They pulled apart and they looked for a moment into each others eyes with wide smiles on their faces.  
It was Hermione who again broke the silence. 'Harry, I think we need to go to Dumbledore.'  
He looked at her for a moment like he was going to protest but then appeared to see the logic in it and closed his eyes and simply nodded.  
He had known it would come to this eventually but he still wasn't prepared for it.  
Why would he want to go back to a world where he had nothing? No family, no privacy and that constant hangover that comes with being 'The Boy-Who-Lived'.  
Here he had his parents, he had Sirius, he was happy.  
He knew that he couldn't stay, it would disrupt the timeline even more than they probably already had. So he simply nodded, unable to actually speak.  
With that Hermione took his hand, lacing her fingers in his, and led him down the stairs to the common room, which they were slightly relieved to find was now empty.

'Herm?' they both stopped. 'I don't think I can go home, knowing what is going to happen to all these people here we have grown to love and not do anything about it. I mean my parents and Sirius, their lives are going to be ruined, I have to do something about that.'  
Hermione looked as though she had been expecting this, she had thought from that first moment on the train when they realised where they were that Harry was going to want to try and save his parents and she didn't blame him one little bit but she knew he couldn't.  
'Harry, you can't, you know you can't.' He nodded, of course he knew, hadn't he just been thinking five minutes ago that him staying here would disrupt the timeline. Stopping someone from dying who should have would have major consequences but it didn't make all this any easier.  
Hermione continued, 'If you stop your parents from dying, then you would never be protected by your mother's love and Voldemort would never be stopped.'  
Harry nodded, feeling defeated, 'You're right. Of course you're right. Come on, lets go find Dumbledore.'  
She looked at him warily but agreed and they left the portrait hole.

'Professer Dumbledore?'

Their headmaster looked up from his desk at Hermione's voice. Harry noticed then for the first time since they had been here that he didn't look any different at all from their time.

'We need to talk to you,' continued Hermione.

'Ah Miss Granger, Mr. Potter, what can I do for you,' the old man had a look on his face that Harry couldn't quite read though he wasn't particularly trying very hard, realised a long time ago that if Dumbledore didn't want you to know something you wouldn't know. Instead, he was concentrating very much on keeping his eyes on his shoes and it was because of this that Harry didn't realise what the headmaster had said. Apparently neither did Hermione.

'Well Sir, me and Har...wait!' Dumbledore smiled at her realisation. She opened and closed her mouth several times, looking rather like a goldfish though no words were coming out.

Harry looked up at her in confusedment, 'Hermione, what's wrong?'

'You know!' was all she could say.

At this Harry's eyes widened dramatically, 'What? How? Do you?'

'Yes Harry, Miss Granger is quite right. I know who you both are and I know that you are not from this time.'

Harry's mouth hung open for a moment before he turned to Hermione who was still staring at their headmaster in awe. 'How did you know he knew?'

'He...he,' she was obviously in shock, this was not how she had expected this meeting to go, 'he called you Potter.'

Harry gasped in realisation, of course Dumbledore had called him Mr. Potter when they came in and they had said his surname was Parker.

Meanwhile Dumbledore was watching the pair in amusement.

Harry absent-mindedly reached over and grabbed Hermione's hand. This seemed to give her the push she needed to regain her senses, 'So then you know why we've come to you. So do you know how to send us home?'

'I have to say Miss Granger that you are a very determined young lady. I had expected you to give up searching the library months ago and just come to me.'

Hermione replied to his statement though not ignoring the fact he hadn't answered her question. 'I didn't want to come to you, I saw you as our last hope and I thought that if you couldn't send us home, no-one could so I didn't want to take the chance that you couldn't. So can you?' She looked at him with pleading eyes though Harry seemed distracted, he was going to miss this world.

'Yes Miss Granger, I can.'

With those words Hermione felt a huge burden lift from her shoulders and losing all sense of control she just started crying hysterically. Harry looked slightly surprised for a moment but regained his senses quickly and hugged her, muttering things like 'it'll be ok' every so often. He was going to have to take control now.

'Ok then,' he said standing up, still holding onto his girlfriend, 'lets do it.'

Dumbledore nodded and started to explain. 'The way I found out about you is through the pictures, here. As you are probably not aware, the people within their portraits as well as being able to move between their counterpart pictures can also move through time to their future selves. This is how I was informed of your identities and this is how I am going to send you home.'

The couple looked vey confused so Dumbledore continued, 'There is a tricky potion which allows me to make you travel through the portraits as their subjects can, this is how I intend to send you home. Now this potion takes 3 months to prepare.'

'What? No, I can't wait 3 months,' exclaimed Hermione.

'You won't have to Miss Granger, I have already prepared it in anticipation of this night.'

Harry smiled and thought about how Dumbledore had never ever let him down.

'Now you need to drink these potions,' he explained, handing them a small vile each, 'and I shall say the incantation which will send you back, or forward depending on how you want to look at it,'

Dumbledore chuckled at his own joke but just then his office door flew open and there stood a very shoched looking Lily and James.

'You're my son,' was all James could say.

Harry nodded.

'And mine?' asked Lily.

Harry nodded again.

'Oh my God,' Lily burst into tears and ran forward to hug her son. 'I knew there was something about you, I knew it.'

'And I knew there was something you weren't telling us that day we came to you to tell you about Harry and Hermione,' James was talking directly to Dumbledore, who was just nodding to confirm their suspicions.

'Wait,' said Hermione, 'You knew as well.'

Lily nodded and explained about how they had heard them talking in the library. They looked surprised to find out they hadn't kept their secret half as well as they thought they had.

'How could you not mention it to us after all this time?' asked Hermione.

James shrugged, 'Was told not to.'

It was then that Dumbledore cleared his throat. 'We are going to have to do this now.'

They all nodded and exchanged hugs, Lily whispering in Harry's ear that she was proud of him, making him flush with pride.

He then took Hermione's hand. 'You two must think of the date you wish to return to,' instructed Dumbledore and Harry muttered the date of the day before Ron's death. Hermione just nodded.

'Ready.' They both drank the potion and heard Dumbledore muttering an incantation.

The last thing that Harry saw was his parents, arm in arm, smiling at them, then he closed his eyes.

'Harry?' he opened his eyes to see Hermione's smiling face.

'Did it work?' he asked, looking around the room. They were stood in his bedroom at number 12 Grimmauld Place. What year was it?

Just as he thought this question Hermione said it and he spun around and spotted a newspaper on his bed. He picked it up, looking for the date.

Hermione was watching him eagerly, waiting for an answer.

'August 7th 1998.'

A smile broke across her face. They were home!

He moved across the room towards her and pulled her close, pressing his lips against hers. She wrapped her arms around his neck, deepening the kiss.

'Bloody hell!' They broke apart and looked towards the doorway to where Ron was stood with a look of pure shock on his face. 'When did this happen?'

**A/N Hope u liked it**


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